The Yamucha Chronicle
by DoraMouse
Summary: Since no one else seems to be taking a serious shot at this - the entire Dragonball and Dragonball Z series, plus a few gaps filled in. All from Yamuchas POV. Have a look. You may be surprised. 33 parts. Completed. Reformatted and revised, again, all chapters on 2-20-2013.
1. Where I came from

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 1: Where I came from**

**I'**m sure that by now you know the main story. The one where Goku worked hard to save the world several times - even though Earth wasn't his native planet. So I guess I'm just here to fill in some of the gaps.

For starts the name is Yamucha. And no, that's not the name I was born with. My brain has kinda blocked out of all my early life - including whatever name my parents originally gave me. Perhaps it's for the best. I don't really want to remember how I ended up alone in the desert. I'd like to think that maybe my parents died and left me there. But deep down, part of me knows that the reasons were a lot more complicated than that. The details would probably just be painful.

My earliest memories date back to... I must have been about seven years old. Naturally I was excited to be out on my own, free to have adventures without any adults to ruin the fun. The desert was absolutely beautiful. Every day was summer and there was so much to explore. As a kid, I was convinced that somewhere under all that sand there just had to be buried treasure. Turned out I wasn't all that far off.

The desert isn't as lonely of a place as some people might make it out to be. I didn't grow up in complete and utter solitude - I don't think I would have lasted long if I had. There were always other people around. It was just a matter of finding them.

Some of the first people that I came across were scientists. Archeologists, to be exact. They were digging in the hopes of finding a lost city or rare fossils. Something like that. The scientists were surprised to cross paths with me. My existence puzzled them. How could a young boy living alone in the desert already have a basic education? They didn't know and I couldn't remember. The scientists took me in anyway. In exchange for my help that spring, the scientists provided me with all the essentials. Food, water, a place to sleep and all that. When the excavation was over - we found some animal skeletons but not much else - the scientists dropped me off at a village of desert Indians. Guess the scientists had decided that I must belong to the tribe. I admit that I probably looked the part.

The tribe was called _Hinodejin_ which roughly translates to _people of the sunrise_. The Indians had no idea who I was. Nevertheless, the tribe adopted me. The elders thought it was too dangerous for a kid to live alone in the desert.

I spent the next six years with the Hinodejin tribe. My Indian name is _Rosuto Sabaku_ which I later learned means _lost in the desert_. Yea. The Indians were kind of literal that way. But it was a good thing - you always knew exactly what was expected of you. It made life simple. I learned a lot during those six years. The tribal customs, the tribal language and the skills of survival. Cooking, hunting, how to build shelter, how to find water, the medicinal properties of plants - that sort of thing. A very practical education to have but kinda dull at times. That's just the way I remember it. I'm not sure how long I was in the desert on my own before the scientists found me but some of the survival skills... Perhaps I'd already learned them, the hard way. Still. The tribe had far more experience than I did and the practice didn't hurt. So I studied.

More than anything else though, I learned how to fight. The local kids viewed me as an outcast. A few of them believed I was an evil spirit or something. So I was always fighting with someone. After my first year with tribe, the elders in the village decided that I had a knack for fighting. The elders selected me to be one of the few kids allowed to study martial arts. Which was quite the honor.

See, back then, there was a martial arts tournament best known as the Tenkaichi Budoukai. There are at least twenty different translations of the phrase _Tenkaichi Budoukai _- Heaven and Earth tournament, Best on Earth, Best under the Heavens... The list goes on. However the most ancient, accurate and literal translation is more than a paragraph long and includes the phrase Unique Warrior Spirit Rotation. No matter how you defined it, the Tenkaichi Budoukai was huge. All the best fighters in the world competed there and competition was fierce. The grand prize included the privilege and perks of the title - any warrior that won was considered the Champion of Earth. Plus there was a reward of one million zeni.

Zeni is, as you may have guessed, a unit of money and a million is a LOT. The Hinodejin tribe wanted the prize money so that they could buy land. Specifically, so that they could buy the entire desert. The Hinodejin considered their desert a sacred place. The Indians didn't want anyone else to use the land. Not without at least getting the tribes permission first. For this reason members of the Hinodejin had been entering every tournament since the 9th Tenkaichi Budoukai way back in 677 A.D. Once or twice, a tribal warrior had come close to winning the grand prize.

Listening to stories of the tournament is how I first heard of a martial artist by the name of Mutaito. Master Mutaito, his rival, his students and their students were infamous for winning the Tenkaichi Budoukai. No one else had won in ages. Mutaito had died a while ago though and his prize student, a guy named Roshi, was rumored to be dead. Even Roshis two best students - a man called Ox and a legendary fellow named Gohan - were older now and neither Ox nor Gohan were known to have students. So with these legends fading away... The Hinodejin tribe really believed they had a chance at winning the next Tenkaichi Budoukai.

For anyone wondering, the next Tenkaichi Budoukai was only the 19th. Technically it should have been about the 30th. Sometimes politics had interfered with the tournament. Thus the Tenkaichi Budoukai hadn't actually been held every three years like it was supposed to have been.

I was a nine year old kid with just over two years of formal martial arts training. Of course I didn't fight in the tournament! Even if I had wanted to compete, my sensei wouldn't have let me. My sensei and the handful of kids selected from the tribe - they had been studying martial arts their whole lives. They were better prepared. They fought in the 19th Tenkaichi Budoukai. I was allowed to go to the tournament, though. I was allowed to watch.

Now this was back in the days when nobody flew. And the only warriors capable of shooting energy blasts were Roshi and a guy called the Crane Master - and both of them were supposively dead. Fights were plain old hand-to-hand combat. Which meant that if the warriors were equally skilled then a single battle might last for hours. The tournament itself was scheduled to last an entire month. Needless to say, once the initial awe wore off, I got enormously bored with being a spectator. So I began to frequent the outside edge of the stadium, where all the warriors awaiting battles would gather to spar. I sparred with them. I didn't always win. But I held my own fairly well. Looking back, I think age had a lot to do with my victories. Being nine, I was naturally optimistic and confident. I didn't have as many doubts back then. I didn't hesitate as much.

One day after sparring, I happened to upset a warrior - purely by accident. Just stepped on his toes while I was walking past. The guy was in a sour mood and challenged me to a duel. I told him that I had no idea what he meant by 'duel' but if he wanted to fight, that was fine. Instead of a fight, I got a lecture. Followed by a fencing lesson. I spent the rest of the 19th Tenkaichi Budoukai out behind the stadium, learning how to fight with a sword.

I practiced sword fighting along with martial arts for the next three years, training hard every day. The other kids in the tribe didn't pick on me quite so much but I was still basically an outcast.

At the age of 12, I went to the 20th Tenkaichi Budoukai. By then I had five years of martial arts training so I was allowed to compete. I almost made it to the semi-finals before I was eliminated from the tournament. Exhaustion was a large part of that. I hadn't been given a chance to recover between fights. My final opponent didn't have much trouble knocking me out of the arena. In retrospect, I wish that I'd tried harder. Perhaps with a little extra effort, I could have won the 20th Tenkaichi Budoukai.

**ooxoo**


	2. Bandits

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 2: Bandits**

**B**y age 13 I was a bit of an archer, a decent martial artist and a dangerous swordsman. The tribe sent me off on a spirit quest. It was a traditional rite of passage. The tribe sent _any_ kid who was thirteen years old off on a spirit quest. I was supposed to wander around in the desert to find inner peace, my purpose in life and so forth.

I found a guy working on his car. Kind of weird, since there wasn't a road nearby. But there he was - this stranger and his car. The vehicle had apparently broken down and he was trying to repair it. I didn't know much about cars but I offered to help anyway. The man accepted my offer. And then, almost immediately, he tried to rob me at gun point. The thief was disappointed to discover that I didn't have much with me that he considered worth stealing. No jewelry or money or capsules. In fact the only possession he considered worth taking was my sword. Which the guy had conveniently failed to notice until the edge of the blade was against the back of his neck.

The guy was so impressed with my ability to threaten his life that he decided not to rob me. He decided to kidnap me instead. _Of course_ I put up a fight. But I wasn't bulletproof. So I lost. Being shot remains one of the clearest memories of my life. For a long moment, the world seemed to move in slow motion. I remember seeing the bullet impact and being surprised that it didn't hurt more.

When I regained consciousness - I have no idea how long I was out - I found myself inside a rocky hideout. I was faced with the choice of either becoming a desert bandit or dying. So I became a bandit. With every intention of leaving the place as soon as I'd regained my health.

The man who shot me went by the name King Viper. He was fairly rich by then and preparing to retire. He explained that it was a tradition for the desert bandit to find a replacement before they retired, that it was a legacy. Centuries of desert bandits, one after the other, building on the criminal record and then passing it on. In this way the hideout was always taken care of and the fearful bandit reputation was never forgotten. King Viper spent the next month teaching me the basics of car repair and lock-picking, as well as constantly threatening to shoot me again if I tried to escape. He never asked for my name - he insisted on calling me _Hyena_ because he thought it was a good name for a bandit - and he never mentioned his own real name. After the month, King Viper retired. He left early one morning without saying a word.

I could have left. I could have walked out of that hideout and gone back to the tribe. I could have gone anywhere. But I didn't. I'd spent a month despising the hideout, a virtual prisoner there. But on the day King Viper retired... Suddenly, I had the entire hideout to myself. It was small and a bit cluttered but it was mine. I had a car, a flying scooter and an arsenal of weapons. I had a tiny kitchen, a bedroom and a garage. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I had a home. A place. _My own place. _I felt as if I belonged there. And for once, there no one was around to tell me otherwise.

The main problem with staying at the hideout was the location. Being roughly in the middle of the desert, there were no nearby grocery stores or farms or anything. I really hadn't intended to become a desert bandit but sometimes when hunting was bad, necessity demanded it. I suppose I could - and perhaps should - have left the hideout but I didn't. I felt responsible for the hideout. I'd never owned a place before. Still. I made a point of not taking more than I needed. Which meant that usually I was only stealing food, water, bandages, tools and ammo.

Yea, ammo. At first I was reluctant to use the guns around the hideout. But I gradually convinced myself that it'd make my life a lot easier if I learned how to shoot. Martial arts and sword fighting are more useful for self-defense than hunting. Archery is basically a joke when hunting some of the larger animals. Having been shot made me very cautious with the guns. That's probably the main reason I survived learning how to use the weapons. Eventually I was bringing down dinosaurs. Since the average sized dinosaur lasted a while, I didn't have to steal as much after that.

Age 14. I'm sick of eating dinosaurs by then so I shoot at other animals when I have the chance. Unfortunately other animals tended to be smaller and a lot faster. I was usually stuck with dinosaur since I could shoot dinos more easily.

While out hunting one day, I saw the absolute strangest thing. A fish. A giant fish. Right in the middle of the desert. Floating in midair. And just as I was beginning to suspect that I'd been out in the sun too long, an amazing thing happened: the fish changed shape. Now it was a little blue-grey cat that drifted along above the sand. I could hear the cat from where I was. The creature was complaining of hunger. As the cat listed the things it was hungry for, it shapeshifted into those things. So while I was watching the cat became a chicken, an apple, a fish again, a dairy cow, a mouse, a bushel of rice and a fern.

It was so completely ridiculous that I couldn't help laughing. The cat - still in the form of a fern - finally noticed me and promptly asked if I could spare anything to eat, fish in particular. Imagine. A floating blue fern in the middle of the desert asks you for some fish. It was just so strange... I couldn't take the situation seriously. Hence I jokingly suggested that the cat should turn into a fishing pole and go catch its own fish. I even pointed out the direction of the river. Much to my surprise, the cat thought my suggestion was brilliant. The cat thanked me, shapeshifted into a fishing pole and flew off in the direction of the river. I decided that I had to watch this.

The cats name is Puar. She's a kitten about half my own age so I think she was seven when I first met her. She did actually manage to catch a large fish. Only after impatiently shapeshifting into a bear and diving into the river though. I dragged her out of the water. Puar decided to share the fish with me and I insisted on cooking the fish.

If you ever want to make a lifelong friend of a cat - offer that cat some cooked fish. I swear, I can't help but think that the main reason Puar decided to stay with me was because back then I knew how to cook and she didn't.

We were best friends in the first five minutes. By a week later, we considered each other family. Puar has become like a little sister to me.

Puar is the one who picked out the name Yamucha by the way. She didn't think much of my other names, 'Hyena' and 'Rosuto Sabaku', so she made up a different nickname to call me by and it just kind of stuck. That's why my name - Yamucha means _end of the tea ceremony_ I guess - is sort of a pun on Puars name. Puar is named after a type of tea and no, I don't know why.

Time flies when you have someone to share it with. Puar and I spent the next two years having adventures. I taught Puar a bit of self-defense, she tried to teach me how to fly and we worked together to occasionally raid villages and rob people. I admit that on several of those raids, I was just looking for a fight. I wanted the practice, wanted keep my skills up to snuff. Because Puar wasn't much of a sparring partner. She could change shapes but she didn't change strength. In other words, looking like a bear didn't make her as strong as one. Besides. I could never really fight Puar. I couldn't stay serious enough to really attack her. She'd always do something ridiculous to make me laugh.

Her shapeshifting ability meant she could change into a key. That made breaking into places a whole bunch easier than if I'd tried to pick the locks. Also, strangely enough for a little flying cat, Puar knew how to drive cars. So she became my driving instructor. To this day, Puar will sometimes joke that the reason all her fur is grey is because I stressed her out when I was learning to drive.

Of all the things we stole the only things aside from food that we kept were ammo, tools, car parts, a small radio and a camera. We sold or gave away the rest and saved most of the money we made, hoping to eventually be able to retire from our lives as bandits.

Thanks to the radio I found out that the next Tenkaichi Budoukai - the 21st - had been put off. I had planned to go to it. I would have been age 15 in the year the next tournament was supposed to have been held. Even though I was disappointed by the delay, I didn't give up hope. I felt that I might have a shot at winning the 21st Tenkaichi Budoukai when it did happen. So I kept training. Just not as often as before.

**ooxoo**


	3. How I got into this mess

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 3: How I got into this mess**

**A**ge 16. Four days in September was all it took to change my life forever. Puars life as well. It started innocently enough. One day we spotted some strangers passing by, a boy and a pig. We set out to give them the traditional desert bandit greeting. The pig was named Oolong, Puar recognized him as a trouble maker from her days at the Shapeshifting Academy. The boy with the monkey tail introduced himself as Goku and, after the initial exchange of attacks, Goku explained that he'd gotten the legendary bo-staff he carried from his Grandpa Gohan.

Remember the legendary martial artist Gohan, a student of Master Roshi? I did. I'd heard all kinds of stories about Gohan. He'd won almost every single Tenkaichi Budoukai that he'd participated in. So the news that Goku had learned martial arts from his Grandpa made me a bit nervous. But I figured it would be a good challenge, so we fought.

It might have seemed like I was winning but I know that I wasn't. In the first place I'd made too many mistakes. I had let my guard down, I'd underestimated the kid. In the second place, height matters. Short people can be royal pains to defend against. But what sealed my defeat that day was a girl named Bulma. When she woke up and came into view, Bulma was so beautiful that it was distracting. I decided to quit while I was ahead. Puar and I retreated.

Uhm. I guess now is as good of a time as any to try to explain...

I had lived with Puar in the desert for the past three years of my life. I considered Puar a friend and a little sister - a completely platonic relationship there. So like any normal teenage guy I had hormones by age 16. But I had zero idea how to react to them. As a result, I just became inexplicably shy. I didn't have a clue how to deal with being in love. I didn't want to end up being rejected or otherwise hurt and embarrassed.

There had been a time in Puars life when she'd been afraid of deep water. Maybe that's part of why she ended up in a desert. However Puar had eventually confronted her fear and gotten over it. And now she seemed to think the same concept would work for me. She insisted that I had to conquer my fear. Ironically, I was too embarrassed to admit that it was more embarrassment than fear. So I agreed to return. Beyond the self-improvement motives, we knew that Oolong was carrying a capsule that was worth a decent amount of money and we were determined to have that.

Under cover of darkness, Puar and I went back to the scene where I'd first battled Goku. We followed the tracks from there and soon located Bulma, Oolong and Goku. They were inside the caravan that had been in Oolongs capsule earlier. Puar and I considered our options. How to get the caravan now? Our first plan was to scare everyone out of the caravan so that we could steal it. I began to look in the windows to see where our victims were. I had no idea what I was about to see.

In my defense, what kind of people put windows in the shower? Doesn't it strike anyone else as strange that there was a window in the shower? Literally _in the shower_. So that any random person walking by the caravan could have glanced inside and seen anyone who happened to be using the shower. Uhm. Yeah. I didn't even know Bulmas name at that point - but suddenly I knew a lot of other things about her, most of which I really hadn't been trying to find out.

While I was dealing with this information overload concerning Bulma, Puar and I happened to overhear an important conversation. Inside the caravan, Goku was explaining the dragonballs to Oolong. Puar and I were both excited by the idea of having a wish granted. So we agreed on a new plan. Instead of stealing the caravan, we would steal the dragonballs.

That sort of didn't work out, blame Oolong. For reasons that I can guess but that I'd rather not think about, Oolong had slipped a sleeping drug to both Goku and Bulma. In hindsight, considering Oolongs motives, Puar and I probably saved whatever dignity Bulma had left by then - although we did so by complete accident. And once again in my defense... As rich as Bulma was, why on Earth couldn't she have worn some pajamas? I mean she was sharing the caravan with two guys anyway, if she had valued modesty at all it seems like she could have worn something. Please know that I wouldn't have looked under the bedcovers if I had known that anyone was there. I was just searching for the dragonballs. Suppose I shouldn't have wasted my time though, it wasn't as if I knew what the dragonballs actually looked like yet.

After that incident, I was embarrassed beyond rational thought. So Puar and I retreated again to recover and rethink our plan of attack. We eventually decided to try a more direct method. An outright attack might give us the advantage of surprise. So the next morning, with Puar driving, I stood in the passenger side of our best car and took aim with a weapon sort of like a bazooka. We pulled up alongside of the caravan and I blew one of the wheels off it.

Unfortunately this earned a counter attack from Goku. He was no longer complaining of hunger and if anything, Oolongs sleeping drug had left him refreshed. Goku knocked out one of my teeth without even trying. I decided that it might be a good idea to leave. Hey - if a kid can knock your tooth out without even being upset then you generally don't want to hang around to see how much more damage that kid can do when he IS upset. It's called choosing your enemies carefully. Besides, it made more sense to steal the dragonballs AFTER the group had collected all seven of the artifacts. That's what Puar and I decided to do, that was our new plan. Let someone else do the work and then... Voosh. The dragonballs would be ours. So would the wish. I even lent the group a car so that we could get this over with.

Please don't ask me why Bulma was wearing a playboy-style bunny suit. I have no idea. At the time I suspected that she'd done it on purpose - just to distract me. And for the record, it worked. Puar and I followed the group at a greater distance than we might have otherwise. They didn't notice us.

And now it's time for another set of introductions: Ox King and more importantly, ChiChi. Unique. ChiChi is definitely unique and when I say that, I mean that she's on the very short list of people who met Goku without trying - or threatening - to kill him first. Notice that Ox King doesn't make that list.

Puar and I encountered ChiChi first. She beheaded a dinosaur right in front of us, screamed her lungs out then turned around and tried to kill us. Sweet kid. Oi. Yes, it was mean to knock her unconscious but that's survival for you.

Ox King was basically known as a monster and semi-legendary martial artist by this time. He guarded a burning mountain with a castle atop it and the stories said that he killed anyone who tried to steal his treasure. There was evidence to support the stories. The burning mountain was real, the castle was real and the crumbling village at the base of the mountain was full of very real skeletons.

Puar wanted give up on the dragonballs at this point but I was stubborn. So we continued to follow the group. We arrived just in time to finally see what a dragonball looked like. Goku was showing a dragonball to Ox King. I was disappointed. I hadn't imagined that the dragonballs would be little orange paperweights. Having heard the dragonballs described as ancient artifacts capable of wish granting, I'd been expecting something more grandiose. Oh well.

While speaking with Ox King, Goku sat aboard Nimbus. That was a warning sign all by itself. An abnormally strong child is one thing. But an abnormally strong child that also rides around on an intelligent golden cloud... Requires a whole new level of caution. To say the least.

Eventually Goku agreed to go fetch something to help Ox King put out the fire on the mountain. But before Goku can leave, Ox King takes out this gigantic photograph and says: "By the way, if you see my daughter..." Suddenly Puar and I realized that the little brat who had tried to toast us with a laser beam was ChiChi, Ox Kings daughter. Which meant that we were dead meat if ChiChi wasn't okay. So while Goku was wondering why Ox King had just offered him a wife, Puar and I raced back to check on the girl. Thankfully, ChiChi was fine. A bit confused, though. For some reason ChiChi seemed to think that I was in love with her.

A few moments later, Puar and I were back in hiding. By then ChiChi had met and fallen in love with Goku. Strange eh? She falls completely in love twice, in almost as many minutes.

It was priceless to watch that meeting though. I still smile at the memory of it. ChiChi had trouble climbing aboard Nimbus, the cloud. She grabbed Gokus tail and tried to pull herself up. This caused Goku to faint and fall off the cloud. Very useful information to have but also just plain a cute moment. As soon as Goku was back up, he and ChiChi were arguing as if they were already a married couple.

I almost wish that Puar and I had followed them further, to Roshis Island. But at the time Goku and ChiChi were just names, just people. I wasn't planning on making friends with them or anything. For anyone wondering though, apparently Goku and ChiChi had an eventful trip. ChiChi gave Master Roshi a head injury that would have killed any normal person. This is understandable. ChiChis father, Ox King, had trained with Roshi and must have told his daughter a few stories about the old master. So she'd probably gone to the island with certain expectations and then when she actually saw Roshi, she was disappointed. He was probably nothing like she'd imagined. The fact that Roshi had survived her attack... I don't know if that impressed ChiChi but it must have helped to convince her that the old man on the beach really was who he claimed to be. Because otherwise - and especially if Roshi had done anything to offend her - ChiChi might have attacked again. She might have even just killed him. And Goku, naive as he could be back then, might have just let her.

How different things could have been, huh? Strange to contemplate. Glad it didn't work out that way.

When Goku and ChiChi returned to the burning mountain riding on the cloud, Roshi was following them. Another shock. For most of my life, I'd heard stories and rumors that claimed Roshi was dead. Yet here he was, riding along on some sort of giant flying turtle and - thanks to ChiChi - wearing a huge bandage on his forehead. The first thing this living legend, this martial arts master who I'd heard so much about at the tournaments... The first thing that Roshi does when he's on the ground... Is throw up.

So much for legends.

After he was done being sick, Roshi was slightly more impressive. Ox King bowed to him and promised to stop killing people. Bulma agreed to show him her chest. And then Roshi blew up the burning mountain. So my week in summary thus far: almost killed twice by a 12 year old boy, almost killed once by a 12 year old girl and then to top it all off, I got to watch an entire mountain of flame dissipate to vapor right in front of me.

It was one of those days when I was beginning to think that perhaps I should have just stayed home and played cards with Puar.

Kamehameha. Yes, I'd heard of the kamehameha. I never thought I'd see the attack though and that first time, when Roshi casually destroyed the burning mountain, the kamehameha seemed obscenely powerful. I made a mental note to avoid angering Roshi. Then Goku learned the attack in under five minutes. With his first kamehameha, Goku blew up the car that I'd lent to the group. He promptly complained that his attack hadn't been as strong as Roshis. Apparently the kid wanted to blow up mountains too.

Master Roshi had retired from martial arts centuries ago - hence the rumors of his being dead. But at that moment, he came out of retirement. For Gokus sake. _Brrr. _Fear would be a massive understatement. The kid was insanely strong already and Roshi wanted to make him stronger.

Puar and I seriously considered giving up on the whole adventure. But I knew that Gokus tail was his weak spot and besides, the group only had to find one more dragonball. Puar and I - we still had a chance to make our plan work, we would just have to be extra careful.

Ox King gave the group his old car - read: hover tank - so that the journey could continue. There was a little more blackmail material before the group left the crater where the mountain had been. I learned another important lesson that would actually help me out much later: Oolong is capable of becoming Bulmas identical twin. He hates to do it but he can do it.

The group left and we waited a bit before following them. I had to convince Puar that the risks were acceptable. By the time Puar and I caught up to the group again, Bulma had - thankfully - changed clothes. She had also gotten the attention of a couple local mobsters. The thugs flirted with her, she told Goku to beat them up and he did. It was actually kind of amusing to see Goku win so easily. I didn't feel anywhere near as bad for having retreated from him before.

The past few days had been weird. Life got weirder. Enter Boss Rabbit - humanoid rabbit and martial artist. And yes, I'd heard of him before too. Boss Rabbit had been disqualified and banned for life from the Tenkaichi Budoukai for using a move he called 'the carrot touch'. Magic. That's what it was. All that Boss Rabbit had to do was touch someone - or vice versa - and the person that he'd made contact with would be turned into a carrot. Not even a giant carrot, just a regular little carrot. Boss Rabbit had once attempted to win a Tenkaichi Budoukai by turning all of his opponents into carrots. After a long struggle, the tournament judges and old Gohan had defeated Boss Rabbit and kicked him out of the tournament. The judges claimed that 'the carrot touch' didn't prove anything about martial arts skill. Rules were made to ban magic from the tournament. It was one of the many, many tournament stories I'd heard while growing up. So I felt a tad guilty for not being able to warn Bulma in time. She was turned into a carrot.

What followed was, in my opinion, one of Gokus most difficult battles. Because he had to defeat Boss Rabbit without touching him. To make matters worse Oolong had run off, all the villagers were hiding and Boss Rabbit was threatening to eat the Bulma-carrot if Goku actually fought back at all. So it wasn't a fair fight. Heck, it wasn't even really a fight. It was two armed guards verses one kid who wasn't allowed to defend himself. Goku was getting pounded out there. If someone didn't interfere soon then Goku was going to be beaten to death.

I may have been a desert bandit and all but I wasn't heartless. The situation really struck a chord with me. I'd grown up in fights like that, where I'd been outnumbered and everything. Not exactly fun experiences, you know? Besides, the group wouldn't be able to gather all the dragonballs if we didn't help out.

Believe it or not, Puar and I can actually claim that we saved Gokus life that day. Bulmas life as well. Guess that's when Puar and I stopped being desert bandits. Although we really didn't mean to be heros. We went right back into hiding after we'd saved them from the thugs. Then Goku sent the Rabbit and the thugs to the moon - literally, I was so glad that Goku considered me a friend - and the journey continued once more. But of course somehow Bulma, Goku and Oolong managed to get yet another car blown up. Worse, they had also allowed some robot to steal almost all of their dragonballs from them. Puar and I were obliged to help them out again. Unfortunately we only had one car. Ours. We had to give them a ride.

That's how Puar and I officially joined the group.

I almost had a nervous breakdown. Bulma was not making my life easier. The entire reason I was driving - instead of Puar, for once - was with the hopes that Bulma would leave me alone. She didn't. It's a miracle that I didn't crash.

Can I ask the readers to consider something for a second? Bulma was convinced, truly convinced, that she would get the dragonballs and wish for a perfect boyfriend. So why was she flirting with any guy her age? Especially me? I'm not scum or anything but I'm not gonna claim to be perfect either. Just a thought.

Anyway. Upon arriving at the castle that the dragonball radar - that's one of Bulmas better inventions - had lead us to, I'm a nervous wreck. Puar is reminding me to breathe, Oolong is being paranoid, Bulma is content to flirt and Goku... I respected him but sometimes it seemed like Goku had the collective brain power of a rock. Therefore it should be no surprise that we walked straight into a trap. Goku, the kid who can blow up cars now, he couldn't even make a dent in the walls. So we were all pretty certain that we were doomed.

The owner of the castle we were raiding was named Pilaf - 'Lord Pilaf' - and he wanted to take over the world. He'd stolen the dragonballs from Bulma, Oolong and Goku in order to get his wish granted. Except he'd missed one dragonball. Gokus. Pilaf had no idea which one of us had the dragonball so he used a funky device in the ceiling to kidnap Bulma from the prison. He threatened to torture the information out of her. Pilafs idea of torture is blowing a kiss at someone. Seriously. He thought that kissing was gross and assumed that everyone else on the planet shared his opinion. So he'd expected Bulma to surrender after blowing a kiss at her. It was a trick that might have worked on ChiChi if she had been with us. But Bulma? Ha! Suddenly, we weren't so doomed. Bulma easily reversed the torture. She told Pilaf all about kissing and a few other things as well. If Goku hadn't been so completely naive, I probably would have covered his ears. Heck, someone probably should have covered my ears.

Pilaf recovered quickly from his shock. He accused Bulma of having 'a diseased mind' and then sent Bulma back to the prison with us. The would-be ruler of Earth decided that he was gonna need more practical means of torture. Gas started filtering into our prison. We couldn't help but breathe the stuff. The room got hazy and I vaguely remember falling. At the time, I didn't know whether or not I was dying.

We woke up a while later and gradually realized that we'd been searched. Goku didn't have his dragonball anymore. We were doomed again.

I was too angry to be shy by then. I'd almost been killed way too many times that week, I'd been knocked unconscious and searched, one of my cars had been blown up and everything I'd worked for - a chance to make my own wish with the dragonballs - had been taken away. All in all, I'd been dragged into a strange adventure and I was sick of it. I just wanted to go home, preferably alive.

So I reminded Goku that he knew how to use the kamehameha. He promptly blew a hole in the wall.

Key word here: _reminded_. As I've said before, I have a great deal of respect for Goku. But he forgets his own attacks sometimes. I suppose Goku can't help being a little absent-minded though. He's endured quite a few concussions in his lifetime. More than enough to kill any ordinary person.

Thanks to the hole in the wall, we found out that we still had a chance. Pilaf was _about to_ summon the dragon. He hadn't actually summoned it yet. If we could just steal all of the dragonballs at the last second... There wasn't a moment to waste. The hole in the wall wasn't very large and Goku didn't have the energy for another blast. Puar and Oolong were the only ones who could get out.

Pay attention people because you won't hear this often: Oolong saved the world. I still wonder what Puar would have wished for if she'd been the one to interrupt Pilaf.

Having saved the world, Oolong and Puar raced back to the safety of the prison. Pilafs guards had guns and neither of the shapeshifters were bulletproof. All this occurred at night. Which turned out to be the only reason we were still alive. Pilaf was kind enough to explain that the walls of our prison were steel and the ceiling was basically a magnifying glass. So come daylight, we were toast. Bulma chose this moment to add a speech of her own. She explained that once a wish had been granted, the dragonballs scattered all over the world and couldn't be used for another year. So we couldn't wish our way out of the situation.

Okay, for the past what - three days, four? - I'd almost been killed more times than I could count. But this was the first time I really believed that I was going to die and die slowly. And Puar too. And at least as far as Puar and I were concerned, it was all my fault that we were in this mess.

Puar saved us. Indirectly but I think it still counts. While the rest of us were panicking, she hovered up by the glass ceiling to look out at the moon. That lead to the discovery of Gokus transformation. Just when I finally thought the kid couldn't possibly have any more surprises and that I couldn't ever be any more terrified than I had already been that week. Ayi...

Take it from me - you do not ever want to be trapped in a small room with a Saiyan when that Saiyan is transforming into a giant ape. Not. Ever.

The bad news was that Goku was turning into a huge, powerful monster who didn't seem to recognize any of us. The good news was that because Goku was now bigger than the room and on his way to becoming bigger than the entire castle, he'd demolished our prison. We didn't really escape Pilafs castle, the castle just sort of ceased to exist. Very little was left of the place when Goku was done with it.

Instead of worrying about escaping from a prison, we now had to worry about escaping from a giant were-monkey in a bad mood. Never a dull moment, eh?

Puar saved us again. More directly this time. I remembered that Gokus weak point was his tail. So Puar bravely took the shape of a giant pair of scissors. She lobbed the monsters tail off. Anyone who is reading this should take note - Puar is certainly not the strongest creature on the planet or anything but that little cat held her own against a giant enraged were-monkey. Don't underestimate her.

Goku reverted back to his human state, sans the tail and considerably worse for the wear. We were all worse for the wear. It'd been a long stressful week but finally the adventure was over. For the first time in days there were no immediate threats to our lives or to the world in general. We could recover, go home, so on and so forth, blah blah blah.

No, of course it didn't work out that way. Things would just keep getting more complicated, at least for me.

This is a good place to close for now. The story doesn't end here - you knew that - but I've been with the group for a long time so there's just a lot to tell. I'm gonna take a break. You should too.

**ooxoo**


	4. Drifting

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 4: Drifting**

**W**hy am I writing all of this down? It occurred to me that I should probably explain in case anyone actually wonders. I'm mostly doing this for my own sake. I want to preserve my memories and other than that... Well. I've kinda been feeling dejected lately. The writing helps me deal with that a bit.

You never realize how much you've done with your life until you sit down and write it all out. Go ahead. Try it sometime.

Back when I was 15, I'd settled on a wish - an ambition. Because you don't last long in the desert if you don't find some purpose in life, some reason to keep living. I had decided that I wanted a family. Back then, a family was the main thing that my life lacked. I had a home, a car, a career of sorts and a best friend. I knew that I had parents and perhaps other relatives as well out there someplace but understandably, I didn't feel all that eager to cross paths with them. After all, they hadn't ever come looking for me.

By the time I was 16, my ambition had become more specific. I wanted my own family and that basically meant that I wanted to get married someday. To make a long story short, I've grown out of that wish. If you handed me all seven of the dragonballs today, right now... I dunno. I'd probably wonder who had died and then I'd wish them back to life, if possible. I don't really need anything. Although it would be nice to be remembered, wouldn't it?

Uh, sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself.

So back when I was 16... Bulma, Puar, Oolong, Goku and I were outside of the remains of Pilafs castle. We'd just escaped death - yet again - and we couldn't search for the dragonballs for a whole year. The adventure was over.

Yea, right. Eesh.

Bulma had mentioned that she would have wished for a perfect boyfriend. I'd conquered most of my shyness by then, due to having a greater fear of death, so I casually mentioned that I would have wished for a wife. Bulma decided this was some kind of amazing coincidence and that we were meant to be a couple. I didn't have any objections at the time. Although considering everything that I'd witnessed as far as Bulmas personality, I probably should have had objections.

Within about ten seconds of deciding to give the dating thing a try, we had our first argument. Very small disagreement but if I had won then we all would have gone back to my desert hideout. I lost. We went back to Capsule Corp. Except for Goku, he parted ways with us because he'd promised to go to Master Roshis Island for martial arts training. So it was just Bulma, Oolong, Puar and I.

Pilafs castle would have looked small next to Capsule Corp.

The mansion and the company are right next to each other. The place doesn't just have its own zipcode, it has two of its own area codes - one for the business phones and one for the home phones. Put yourself in my shoes for a second. Imagine that for the past three years of your life you've lived in a one-room house with a garage and sometimes, on long trips, you have lived in a car. And you shared that space with a cat. And then... You walk into Capsule Corp and they have _closets_ bigger than any of the houses you've ever set foot in.

My shyness returned tenfold because I felt very badly out of place. It didn't make things better when I almost fainted from the shock of learning that the entire mansion - the place could have comfortably hosted a whole village but no. All that space, all that stuff and who lived there? Three people and a tiny cat. That's it! Nobody else. From the size of the place, I'd expected Bulma to have about twenty siblings and maybe some grandparents or other relatives living with her.

The entire first day I was there, I was thinking about how much it must cost to have a mansion that size and what a complete waste of money. I mean for three people and a tiny cat - they didn't even use all the rooms. They probably couldn't even _find_ all the rooms. The place was a giant maze.

Capsule Corps size worked in my favor on that first day though. Initially Bulma wanted me to share her room but I managed to insist that if - heavy emphasis on IF - I was staying in a huge mansion then there was absolutely no reason why I shouldn't have my own room. That turned out to be one of the only arguments where I won. I had help though. Credit to Oolong for offering to share Bulmas room in my place. Credit to Puar for accusing Bulma of having no shame. And extra credit to Mrs. Briefs - Bulmas mother might be the only person on Earth that Bulma will consent to lose arguments to.

I've known Mrs. Briefs and Dr. Briefs for several years now but I still don't know exactly what to think of either of them. They're nice enough people, just very... Untraditional. How many parents do you know who would let their only child wander off to search for magical artifacts? How many parents wouldn't worry at all when that child failed to call them every day? And how many parents would be perfectly calm when instead of the magical artifacts, the child returns home with a cat, a pig and a former bandit?

Seriously, deep down the only reason I had agreed to go to Capsule Corp was that I figured Bulmas parents would be normal. That they'd throw me out, scold Bulma for her behavior and ground her for worrying them so much. It was eerie when they didn't react as I'd imagined. Er, not _they_ I guess. Just Mrs. Briefs. I didn't even see Dr. Briefs until later that week. He's a bit of a workaholic. Gets really caught up in his ideas, loses track of time and stuff like that.

Bulma must have inherited a lot of her fathers personality. I didn't see much of her either. Not long after we had settled in at Capsule Corp, her summer vacation ended. So Bulma had to go back to high school. Which meant that Bulma was gone most the day, six days a week. Then there was homework and extra credit projects and club activities and social events. Plus Bulma felt the need to spend whatever tiny amount of spare time she had hanging around the company side of Capsule Corp. She knew that she would own the place one day so she tried to keep track of everything the company was working on.

Meanwhile I was doing all right. Still getting lost in the mansion sometimes but always trying to help out around the place. I felt compelled to earn my keep somehow. It was impossible though. My help wasn't needed. The dishes, the gardening - the Briefs had machines that took care of everything.

Luckily I stumbled across a gym in the house. It hadn't been used in eons. I dusted a few things off and decided to train. No. I did not, not even for one millisecond, train because I thought I could become stronger than Goku. Please - I'd seen Goku blow up cars, I'd seen him transform. The kid practically had _legendary_ tattooed on his forehead. His bo-staff, his cloud, his martial arts teachers - all those were legendary. I figured that Goku would probably grow up to be the Kami of Earth, a god. I mean he was practically invincible anyway...

Oh yea, the so-called relationship thing. Back to that then. I was training, just to stay in shape. And maybe also because I didn't trust the robot servants around the house since I'd never seen anything like them before. Okay, okay. I admit it, I might have been preparing to defend myself against a bunch of domestic robots. Yea. Heroic, I know. Augh. Hey - after the weird adventures I'd had, I wasn't about to trust anything easily. Always be prepared, right?

The gym was one of the few places in the mansion that didn't have a phone. So when Bulma stormed in one day and yelled at me for almost a solid half hour, I had no idea what she was talking about. All I got out of the lecture was that Bulma thought I was cheating on her. As if I could even find the front door of Capsule Corp. As if Capsule Corp had neighbors nearby. As if I knew anybody in the area. Who the heck did she think I was cheating on her WITH? I asked her that and Bulma said: "The girl that answered the phone!"

Apparently Bulma had called my room to check on me - she did that sometimes - and since I wasn't there, I hadn't answered the phone. Puar had, though. And Puar... Doesn't sound like Puar on the phone. There is no scientific explanation for it but when innocent little Puar answers the phone, you'd think you had a 1-900 number. The sort that Roshi might keep on his speed dial, if you catch my drift. Puar doesn't do this on purpose. She just happens to sound different if you're on the other end of the phoneline.

Puar was a nine year old kitten at the time. She knew what had happened - Bulma had yelled at her as well - and the poor little cat was so upset that she refused to speak to anyone for the next two weeks. Oolong on the other hand, thought this was a great discovery and proceeded to answer every phone in the mansion as often as possible.

Thus started a gag that would run on and off for the next several years. Chalk it up to Kami having one twisted sense of humor. Bulma accused me of cheating often enough that I began to wonder if she was trying to drop me a hint. Sometimes it seemed as if Bulma WANTED me to get a different girlfriend. You know, one that actually had some time to spend with me. Eh. Just a random thought.

So anyway - Bulma and I drifted. Not that we were particularly close in the first place.

**ooxoo**


	5. School Daze

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 5: School Daze**

**A**side from phones, one of the other things that Capsule Corp has in nearly every room is a television. I'd seen televisions before, back when I was with the tribe but the desert hideout hadn't had a tv. So I hadn't watched tv in years. I was curious to see what kinds of shows were on. That's when I discovered professional baseball. At first glance, it looked like one of the most boring and pointless things in the world. I mean it was a CHILDS game - hitting a ball with a stick. Not something that I thought people could do for a living. Baseball was just a sport. Anyone could play it. What was so special about a bunch of adults playing a kids game? Why did they even bother to put it on tv?

Then the announcers happened to mention the amount of money that one of the players had gotten _just for signing a contract._ Understand, this was a bonus. Something that the player got in addition to his regular income - which the announcers also mentioned in a very casual way.

I shouldn't have been snacking on popcorn. I nearly choked to death.

Money was never important to me before I met Bulma. Yes, as a bandit I'd worked hard to get and save money for retirement. But... I hadn't had much use for money. Not in the desert. There wasn't any place to spend money out there.

Bulma was always kind of rubbing it in, that she was rich and I wasn't. She tried to make it seem as if I owed her somehow, that I had to obey her or something just because she could afford to take care of me. I'd lived alone for most of my life. Yet Bulma didn't seem to think that I was capable of living without her. It was an insult. I was sixteen. I didn't need charity and I wasn't about to let Bulma order me around. In fact, I wanted very much to prove her wrong. I wanted to be seen as an independent person. Equal. Not inferior.

Erm. I did actually try to get work as a professional baseball player that year. Me. A sixteen year old kid with zero experience playing the sport. Not the smartest thing I've ever done but I was so confident, baseball looked easy. I knew that I could figure it out. Especially if anyone wanted to pay me for my efforts. However the people at the clubhouse that I talked to just laughed at me. They weren't ready to believe that a kid who'd never even played the game could be major league material and so they weren't about to hire me. Oolong - when he was done taunting me for all this - explained that most real baseball players start by playing on a team in school then work up to the minor leagues and THEN, if they're good enough, go to the major league.

I only knew one person that was in school. Bulma. Ack. I went back to training. I wasn't ready to throw my pride out the window by asking for Bulmas help.

Puar was sick of being at Capsule Corp, that's her excuse for what she did next. She thought that if I got onto the high school baseball team then we'd be gone a lot - to baseball games. I quickly became the victim of a conspiracy. Oolong slipped me that damn sleeping drug of his and Puar shapeshifted to become my double.

When I woke up about twelve hours later, I had too severe of a headache to yell at either of the shapeshifters. Puar explained everything. She was frazzled, apologizing a lot and saying that she'd just wanted to help. Oolong agreed with her for once and said that he was sick of being around Capsule Corp as well. I let them know that I wasn't thrilled - the idea that either Puar or Oolong could imitate me was a smidge creepy. I also told the shifters that they could have just said something and we'd have gone to visit the desert hideout or Oolongs old mansion or somewhere else. I was sure that the Briefs wouldn't mind lending us a vehicle for the trip.

Then came the bad news. Puar had enrolled me in high school. She'd figured that was the best way to get me on the baseball team without asking for Bulmas help.

I was still in shock when Bulma confirmed this news, she stopped by to yell at me again. You'd think that Bulma would have been happy about this. Logically, if I went to her school then she'd be able to keep an eye on me. But no. Instead of being happy, Bulma was enraged. As it turns out, Puar - while playing the role of me - had spent the day encountering people that weren't fond of Bulma. And for the most part, Puar had been acting like herself. So she'd made friends.

Bulma doesn't have a lot of friends. The other kids at her school consider her a nerd, a rich spoiled brat, a teachers pet, a show off and... Well, the list goes on. Most of the kids believed that Bulma was getting good grades because of her appearance and the fact that she was from a wealthy family. A lot of those kids envied Bulma. Some of them would have done anything to humiliate or upset her. And these are the kinds of people that Puar, disguised as me, had spent the day with. Augh. I was framed!

In a way, I felt a little sorry for Bulma. I could relate to the outcast bit. Though it seems to me that Bulma does kind of make it worse on herself. She is a perfectionist, she does act superior a lot. She is a genius but not socially. If she'd just relax once in a while and not try to prove her brain power to everyone and everything then maybe other people wouldn't form such harsh opinions of her. Because Bulma... There have always been all kinds of smart people in the world - Bulmas own parents were living proof of that - but most of the time Bulma acted like she was the only real genius on the planet. And she didn't just want for other people to say that she was smart. The way she behaved... It was like maybe what she really wanted was for other people to admit that they were stupid. So yeah... It's kinda hard to make friends with that sort of an attitude.

That's when I made my first major mistake in our so-called relationship. I knew that Bulma would make my life a living hell if I attended her school. So I came up with a plan and convinced the shapeshifters to help me out. My intentions were good. I was hoping that we could make peace between Bulma and her enemies.

On my first day of high school, I had Oolong in a backpack and Puar was posing as Bulma. Bulma herself had gotten another dose of Oolongs sleeping drug and so she stayed home.

I've said that Capsule Corp is a giant maze, right? Right. It is. And that's kind of scary. A person could die in one of those rooms and you wouldn't know it until you stumbled across the body. And with the way that Mrs. Briefs and Dr. Briefs each devote themselves to their work, that could be weeks. Bulmas parents didn't notice that Bulma stayed home that day. They hadn't noticed when I'd been knocked out for twelve hours in the gym either.

Anyway. I went to the school. Erm. Please understand I'm not opposed to education but in retrospect, school seems impractical. A lot of what is taught in the schools isn't going to be used by the students later on in their lives and by high school, most of the students have figured that out. That's why the emphasis in high school is - or at least, seems to be - more on social affairs than academic ones.

The most important thing I learned all day was that I now officially had a girlfriend that wasn't Bulma. Gee, thanks Puar. Oi.

No, I didn't have the heart to yell at Puar for this fluke. Poor little cat was being punished enough. She was disguised as Bulma that day - remember? So aside from being public enemy number one at the school, Puar had to take all of Bulmas classes. We're talking Puar verses post calculus three. Actually I'm surprised at how well Puar held out. Apparently Puar had learned more than shapeshifting at the Shapeshifter Academy. She even aced a quiz in an advanced physics class. We still have that quiz, it's hanging on the fridge with its A+ grade in bright red ink.

Oolong can't change shape for more than five minutes at a time but sometimes, that's all you need. On and off throughout that day, Oolong was all too glad to play as my double and keep the girl who was claiming to be my date away from me. Yea, I was still a bit shy. Mostly just weirded out to have a complete stranger claiming to be my girlfriend - but a tad shy as well. I had threatened bodily harm to Oolong if he did anything that got me in trouble so he made an effort to behave. This didn't prevent us from eventually getting caught. Oolong was still my identical twin at the time and the girl saw us both at once, so she knew something was up. When neither of us tried explain it - we were busy trying to get away from her before Oolong became a pig again - she took offense. And she took more offense when Oolong reverted back to his true form.

Bulma has some seriously twisted social enemies. This girl happened to be one of them. She accused Oolong and I of making her look like an idiot - which was fair enough - and then she accused us of being paid by Bulma to do it. Puar had the worst timing ever. She was so happy about her good grade in advanced physics that she ran right up and hugged me. Of course Puar can stay shapeshifted all day so she still looked like Bulma and that's what the girl saw - Bulma hugging me. The girl was absolutely furious. And she had friends. Lots of them.

This was between classes so I tried to escape a confrontation by making the excuse that we didn't want to be late for our next class. The excuse didn't work. There wasn't any escape, I was surrounded. I think that girl was a cheerleader or something because it looked like the battle would be me against the football team. Puar was confused about what was happening and Oolong was hiding in the backpack.

It didn't actually turn into a fight though. Puar didn't let it. She caught on quickly and felt the whole situation was her fault. So to protect me, Puar shapeshifted into an ugly dragonish-thing.

That shattering sound you hear is Bulmas reputation. All of Bulmas peers, all the people that Bulma had spent her life trying to seem normal to - or at least trying to seem like a genius to - they had just seen Puar change shape. And Puar had gone straight from one shape to the other, without pausing to take her true form inbetween. So nobody saw a little cat. They just saw Bulma change into a giant and fairly ugly dragon.

At least the shifting also had the effect that Puar HAD intended, everyone was scared enough to run away.

I decided not to go back to school after that.

There is another important issue here. I didn't want to mention it at first but maybe by writing this down, I can raise some awareness. So we're going to back up and step off on a tangent for a moment. I'll try to find the words. Uhm. Parents. Let's start with that. People who know their birth parents can not easily relate to the profound void that I have to deal with. This subject doesn't occupy my every waking thought but it's never far from my mind. You can't understand me or my view of the world if I don't bring this up. It's something that has influenced me and the way I am. Because when a person doesn't know their own parents then, in a way, it can be really challenging for the person to know themselves.

When I went to the high school... It was because Puar had enrolled me. And that is actually quite a stunt. Because Puar didn't just have to shift to become my double for that day - she and Oolong had needed to create some serious paperwork.

Schools keep records. They keep track of how each student behaves and performs. They keep copies of school photos and test results. Even after a student graduates they store all this data somewhere so that anyone doing a background check, like a potential employer, can find it later. It's a rigid system. It's official. And this is why a student has to be able to present identification in order to enroll in school. For most students, presenting ID is not a problem. For me... Or anyone pretending to be me... I was old enough to legally drive and I'd been driving around in the desert for years - but I didn't have a license. Because in order to get a license, you have to be able to present at least one other valid form of identification. A birth certificate.

When you've been abandoned in a desert as a child, you don't have one of those.

Do you realize how much information a birth certificate contains? It's amazing to me, to think of what that might be like. To be able to sit there with a single piece of paper and suddenly have so many answers... Was I born in winter, summer, spring or autumn? Morning, afternoon or middle of the night? I don't know. Was I born in a hospital or at a house or in the backseat of a car stuck in traffic? Was I born to a married couple? Was I born to an unmarried person? I don't know. Had my conception been the result of a crime? Had my conception been the result of science? I don't know. Had the birth taken very long or been very difficult? How old were my parents when they had me? Was I the only child or were there others? I don't know. How much did I weigh when I was born? What color were my eyes when I first opened them? What color was my hair, has it always been black? I don't know. I don't know what my parents names are and I don't know what kind of name they gave me. I don't know where in the world my parents lived or what country I was born to. I don't know what languages my parents might have spoken. I don't know what their blood types are or any of their medical history. I don't know if I look like my parents or sound like them or act like them.

What was the first word that I spoke and who taught me to speak? When did I take my first steps and who was there to walk with me? I don't know.

If life is a book then perhaps the first chapter of mine should be blank. Because I don't know what happened.

I'm not even a hundred percent sure of my own age. I celebrate a birthday once each year but that is just a day that I've picked. What day was I actually born on? Was it a Monday or a Sunday or one of the other days inbetween? Was I born on the first day of the month or the last day or somewhere in the middle? Truly, I don't know. The ages that you'll see me refer to in this writing - for my own age, I'm guessing. I'm pretty sure that I'm close. The archeologoists who'd first found me, these people who occupy some of my earliest clear memories... Before they took me to the Hinodejin tribe, they estimated my age. When they told me that I had to be about seven, I believed it. For the rest of that year, I told everyone who asked that I was seven. Because the archeologists had said so. They'd seemed qualified. They were digging up fossils in the desert and knew how old those were - why not? So when you read this... Bear that in mind. I'm not a hundred percent certain of my actual age but the ages that I record here are the ages that I truly believed myself to be at the time.

When I'd been living with the Hinodejin indians... Yea, it had bothered me to be the outcast. Being the outcast wasn't something that I'd chosen. Being abandoned in the desert - that wasn't my decision. So it was hard, to have to live with that. I'd see the other kids in the tribe playing with their siblings or learning from their parents... And sometimes I'd feel left out. I'd get jealous. But I actually dealt with it better, back then. Because when I was a kid, I spent my time thinking about the future. I was more focused on what I wanted to become. As I grew older, that would change. I'd look to the past more often, wonder about my origins and who I might have been.

Also... As a kid... I had decided to believe that my parents must have been bad people. That made it easier, almost. That was my way of rationalizing that I would be better off without them. When I lived at the Capsule Corp mansion... There was a city outside. A whole city. Filled with all kinds of people. I didn't get out a lot but... I was old enough to see and understand that sometimes good people can make bad decisions. That sometimes good people can be in bad situations. It was evident. But it was a hard truth to swallow because it meant that I had to change my opinion. Had to consider that maybe my parents weren't bad people. To this day, I remain undecided on how to feel. Sometimes I still want to believe that my parents were bad and sometimes I want to imagine them as good people in bad circumstances. Sometimes I want to know more about them and sometimes I don't. It is very difficult. It's painful to try and remember but it's also painful to have no memories. And, at least for me, the paperwork that life seems to require is never going to be routine or straightforward. Because I won't ever have enough identification.

Here's the awareness that needs to be raised: I'm not the only one.

I'm told that even in your world, there are children who grow up without knowing their birth parents. There are children who are, for whatever reason, abandoned. Maybe their parents died in a war or in a car accident or from a natural diaster. Maybe their parents were struggling with a disease or struggling with money. Maybe their parents didn't feel ready to be parents. There are all kinds of ways that the separation can occur. It can be as innocent as a child wandering off in a crowded area or it can be as complex as a messy divorce with a custody battle. Some of these kids are abandoned and some of them are runaways. Some of them are legally seized - because with enough evidence, the government reserves the right to declare an adult unfit to be a parent. Most of these kids are ultimately shipped off to be raised by relatives, some make it to the orphanages and some go missing, never to be found. Those lucky ones who get adopted might get to see an adoption certificate someday. But even those with memories of their true parents, they are bound to have trouble getting access to their own original birth certificates because the laws about privacy are so stictly enforced. The debate on abandoned, adopted and otherwise separated-from-their-bloodline kids... It's a fuzzy area for the legal system. Do you give a kid information about their original parents? Do you give the parents information about the kid? What if the kid wants to learn about his family but they don't want to be found? Or vice versa? Releasing the records might endanger or offend someone. Often the kids have to grow up and become adults before they can even start petitioning for access to these documents. By then, all that is usually left to find of their parents is a tombstone.

So... If you know about your birth family, count it as a blessing. Even if you don't like your family, at least you know them. Try not to take the information for granted. Not everyone has it.

Puar and Oolong had enrolled me into the high school with false documents. Even if my first day hadn't been a total disaster, leaving was a good idea. The school would have figured it out eventually. I wouldn't have been permitted to attend for long.

The shifters and I returned to Capsule Corp. We didn't wait for Bulma to wake up. We just left Bulma a note and then left the city. Oolong, Puar and I borrowed an old aircar and went back to check on Oolongs mansion. Oolong put his mansion up for sale, Puar and I stayed there for a couple months to help him clean up and sell the place. When the mansion had sold, we went back to the desert hideout for a while. We all wondered from time to time how Goku was doing but none of us knew where Roshis Island was.

Eventually we went over to Ox Kings former mountain to ask him for directions. Ox King was there by himself, rebuilding his castle. We were told that ChiChi had left to study martial arts more seriously. Puar and I planned to stay with Ox King for at least a couple weeks to help with the castle construction. Oolong took the aircar and went to Roshis Island without us.

**ooxoo**


	6. 21st Tenkaichi Budoukai

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 6: 21st Tenkaichi Budoukai**

**O**olong came back in a few days. He said there was something we had to see. So Puar and I left Ox King behind, promising to come back when we could.

What Oolong had wanted us to see was a kid named Krillen who was also receiving training from Master Roshi. We came by when the boys happened to be sparring and we just watched for a while from a distance. Notice the 'we watched'. Oolong and Puar could still see the fight. Goku and Krillen were both ridiculously speedy but they weren't invisible to the average person yet. They couldn't fly yet.

Krillen was age 13 at the time although he didn't look it - he has never really looked his age - and he was holding his own against Goku. That's what impressed me the most. I'd seen Goku blow up cars and send people to the moon, so it was a true surprise to see anyone provide a challenge for Goku. No, Krillen didn't match Gokus strength but then Goku didn't match Krillens speed. Very few of Gokus attacks were hitting. And while Krillen was landing more of his attacks, he wasn't doing as much damage.

I added Krillen to my mental list of people not to tick off. Later I would also added Lunch to that list, she was at the island as well and I wasn't bulletproof yet.

Goku remembered us - Oolong, Puar and I - and he was happy to see us all again. Krillen instantly accepted us as friends. Then Goku suggested - and I wasn't sure if he was joking - that I should spar with them. He was all excited about some upcoming tournament...

Yep. The 21st Tenkaichi Budoukai had finally been rescheduled, it was two years late but it was going to happen. I had about seven months to get ready.

I trained harder than ever because I knew full well that with my 'luck', I'd probably end up being pitted against Goku or Krillen. And yes, I did occasionally spar with them. Enough to increase my strength considerably and enough to finally become bulletproof. Also I did sort of make peace with Bulma - we were back to just friends - and I will openly admit that I mostly made up with her because Capsule Corp had a gym and my desert hideout didn't.

Since I was training so much, Puar and Oolong were left to take care of themselves. This didn't bother Oolong but it was hard on Puar. While perfectly capable of surviving on her own... Puar became depressed. She and Bulma remained on bad terms. Which made me feel guilty for dragging Puar back to Capsule Corp. That's why I finally arranged for Puar to stay at the Kame House instead. I trained there a lot too, so Puar would still see me. Plus Bulma wouldn't be able to get on her case. Puar resented this at first. Then she became good friends with Lunch and Umigame, the resident sea turtle. After that, she didn't mind living at the Kame House.

Even without Puar, Capsule Corp wasn't as empty anymore when I went back. Taking in complete strangers had apparently been a nice experience for Bulmas parents. So Mrs. Briefs had gotten the entire massive basement of the mansion rennovated into a luxury kennel area for stray animals. She was also renting out rooms in the mansion - very cheaply, I might add - to anyone who needed a place to stay. She talked to the homeless shelters in the city and helped them by taking in anyone that they couldn't. She talked to schools and sponsered foreign exchange students. She talked to adoption agencies and became a foster parent. Hence Mrs. Briefs... She was still a workaholic but she was happy because she had a lot more creatures around to talk with and cook for. Cooking seemed to be a creative outlet for her. Most of her better ideas for inventions came to her in the kitchen. During this time, with so many strangers around... Dr. Briefs also stayed home slightly more often. This caused some of the Capsule Corporation employees to take up temporary residence in the mansion, just so that they could talk to and work with their boss. So yea, there were a lot more people and animals coming and going at the place now. Not many of them came by the gym, though.

May rolled around all too soon. The 21st Tenkaichi Budoukai took place. I was 17, Krillen was 14, Goku was 13 and we had all entered the tournament. So had Master Roshi.

Wish that I HAD been pitted against Krillen or Goku. I wasn't. I'd been doing fine and then I drew a match against 'Jackie Chun'. Roshi was in disguise. But I suspected that it was him and my brain kept replaying that time I'd seen Roshi blow up Ox Kings mountain. That was all I could think about. My train of thought was along the lines of: _Dear Kami, what the hell am I doing here? This guy can turn flaming mountains into piles of dust accidentally._

So I was more than little bit intimidated to face off against a legend. Wouldn't you be? As a result I slipped up, made a stupid mistake and basically threw myself out of the arena. Bulma was extremely smug when I lost. But it turns out my fear was justified - Roshi later blew up the moon. Yes, the moon. A whole planet several thousand miles away from someone standing on the surface of the Earth. Blown up, in one shot, by an old man who'd already been fighting all day. Brrrr.

Roshi won the 21st Tenkaichi Budoukai. At the age of 320, he managed to take the victory from Goku. Don't underestimate the old guy.

Krillen will never forget that particular fight because it was the first time that Krillen had seen Goku transform. Understand that Krillens last match in the tournament had been against Goku. So he was terrified to think that it could have been him out there against a giant were-monkey.

For the record, the 21st Tenkaichi Budoukai was the shortest tournament ever. Previously the tournament had taken at least a month. With Krillen, Goku, Master Roshi and I using energized attacks - not energy beams, just _energized_ punches and kicks and stuff - to eliminate our opponents, most of the preliminary fights had been kept under ten minutes. We were all much stronger and faster than the average humans. The whole tournament had only lasted one day and we'd ended up against each other. Krillen had been eliminated from the semi-finals by Goku and I'd been eliminated by Roshi, so Krillen and I shared third place. Roshi, Goku, Krillen and I - between the four of us we'd controlled the tournament. I was one of the strongest people in the world.

I am still one of the worlds strongest warriors. I'm just not at the top five end of that list anymore and that's fine. Strength isn't everything.

**ooxoo**


	7. Fortunate?

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 7: Fortunate?**

**A**fter the 21st tournament, Goku chose not to return to Kame Island. He wanted to search for the dragonballs instead. So Bulma gave him the dragonball radar and he left. When Goku set out, I don't think he intended to gather all the dragonballs or make a wish. He just wanted to find a certain dragonball. The four star dragonball was important to him for some reason. I didn't ask why.

Goku left on his own although Krillen, Bulma and I helped out when we could. Lunch even helped out. But for the most part we were all in the background, dealing with our own lives and struggling just to keep track of Gokus escapades. So Goku defeated the bulk of the Red Ribbon Army without us. By the time we learned of Gokus intentions to destroy the Red Ribbon Army Headquarters, the fight had already begun. And by the time we arrived to try and help out... The fight was over.

In the process of defeating the Red Ribbon Army, Goku had acquired six of the dragonballs. There was only one dragonball left to find and Goku now had a reason for wanting to find it. Something about needing the wish to reincarnate someone. Goku didn't waste much time explaining the situation to us, he just wanted to fix things. And he needed to have all the dragonballs in order to fix things. And for some reason, the last dragonball wasn't showing up on the dragonball radar.

Master Roshi suggested that Goku should go to a certain elderly fortune teller to get information about the last dragonball. Goku was given a map but he couldn't read it. So Krillen, Puar and I decided to tag along. That's how we met Uranai Baba. Even though she wasn't a martial artist, I'd heard stories about her while growing up. Not surprising, really. As long as people are superstitious, there will always be stories about witches. But when that witch happens to be cranky, dangerous, insanely rich and over five hundred years old... Yea. Stories galore.

We had to wait in line for a chance to speak with Uranai Baba. While we waited, Goku left. He returned quickly though and brought someone with him - a little boy named Upa. Apparently Upa was a friend that Goku had made in his recent wanderings. At first I wanted to protest Upas presence. The kid looked to be under five years old. If anything dangerous came up then he'd have been at risk. But... Goku had brought him, so I didn't say anything. Because for all I knew, Upa might be Gokus equal in strength. And even if he wasn't a warrior, if Upa had Gokus respect then he'd have Gokus protection as well.

Finally our turn came and we were guided to the witch. Looking at Uranai Baba, danger was not the first word that leapt to mind. She's barely two feet tall and doesn't project a particularly evil aura or anything. Even though I'd grown up hearing all kinds of stories about her... Those were just stories. I didn't know if there was an ounce of truth to any of them. And even if there was some truth to them, why worry? Goku was there, that gave us an extra advantage. Uranai Baba couldn't be expecting anything like Goku. Heck, she might not even be expecting anything like Krillen. Or me.

Since we couldn't afford to buy Uranai Babas advice, we agreed to battle five of her guards in order to earn her help. We even agreed to let Uranai Baba set the rules and choose the arena for each battle. It was an easy choice. Stupid, in retrospect, but simple at the time. Krillen, Goku and I - less than a week ago, we'd all placed in the 21st Tenkaichi Budoukai. So we were confident. We didn't expect Uranai Babas guards to be a challenge.

Goku was probably willing and able to fight. If we'd let him, I'm sure that he would have ripped through every single one of the guards on his own with ease. But Goku had been in a lot of battles recently - what with defeating the Red Ribbon Army and all - so Krillen volunteered for the first fight.

The first guard was a vampire. The vampire had two advantages over Krillen. First, the vampire could fly. Krillen couldn't. None of us could fly, not yet. Second, the vampire could change shape. Krillen wasn't able to change shape and worse, he couldn't land a hit. I sympathized. I knew from experience - all the times when I'd tried to spar against Puar or even Oolong - how hard it could be to hit something when that something keeps changing shape. Krillen wasn't used to fighting a shifter, he didn't know what to aim at and so he quickly became frustrated. Which nearly proved fatal. The vampire sunk its teeth into Krillens head and drew enough blood to make him faint.

At that point, it became obvious how limited our formal training had been. We'd only been trained to deal with other martial artists. We weren't prepared to deal with magical opponents. We'd been training to compete in tournaments like the Tenkaichi Budoukai, tournaments where weapons and magic and killing were illegal. We hadn't come prepared to fight to the death. We'd agreed to defeat Uranai Babas guards but we hadn't expected that we might need to kill the guards in order to defeat them. And these guards were supernatural warriors, what if they couldn't be killed?

Puar volunteered to take over. She wanted to test the limits of the vampires shapeshifting talent. Upa also wanted to help. And I had a plan. Once Krillen was bandaged up and had started to recover consciousness, we asked that Upa and Puar be permitted to enter the fight together. The vampire had no objections so Uranai Baba allowed it. Working together, Upa and Puar outwitted the vampire and defeated him.

Forgive me if I kind of skip ahead here but I don't care to recall what happened next. Because the next two fights were mine. The second guard was invisible - and we couldn't detect energy back then, so you can just imagine what a pain that was. The third guard was a homicidal corpse and it didn't help that the fight took place on a narrow walkway suspended over a pool of acid. I very nearly died in each of these battles. Krillen - with some help from Goku, Master Roshi and Bulma - managed to save me from the invisible guard. Goku rescued me from the homicidal corpse.

I spent a while in daze. Physically aching but mentally kinda numb, detached. Guess it was some kind of mild shock. I know that Goku beat the homicidal corpse but I don't really remember that battle. The news that Uranai Baba was Master Roshis elder sister didn't even make me blink.

By the time my brain finally came to terms with the fact that I was still alive, Goku had defeated the fourth guard. The group returned to the outdoor arena, for which I was immensely grateful. Quite a relief to get away from the stench of flesh-eating acid. And even though I had failed miserably - that's how I felt about those battles, never mind that I'd held my own - I managed a hint of optimism. Because if Goku had defeated the fourth guard then there was only one guard left to beat. And Goku was practically invincible. Victory couldn't be far off.

Then I glanced up and noticed that Goku was struggling. To make matters weirder, his current opponent - Uranai Babas fifth guard - appeared to be human. An advanced martial artist, to be sure, but still a regular human being. I couldn't believe it. How was this possible? Master Roshi seemed to understand the situation but I didn't. Not until the ghost did something that caught Goku by surprise.

The ghost grabbed Goku by the tail. Now don't get me wrong, any bully in the world could have done that - or at least tried to. Goku was fast but he didn't hide his tail. However this opponent had been very deliberate. The way he'd done it had made it very clear that somehow, he knew. This guard... This elderly gentlemen in the fighting uniform, his face hidden by a cat mask... He knew Gokus weak spot. At least for me, the connection was more or less instant. I'm sure that Krillen, Bulma, Upa and Puar figured it out with equal speed. Even Goku must have had his suspicions. If this opponent knew Gokus weak spot - could the opponent know Goku? Who WAS this guard?

We learned that soon enough. An exchange of kamehamehas lead to the revelation. The guard removed his mask and forfeited. Goku recognized his adoptive grandfather. Yep. Uranai Baba had recruited the legendary Gohan to be her fifth guard. We were in the ghostly presence of a warrior that had won almost every tournament he'd entered, including several Budoukais. While alive this guy had been Master Roshis best student, Ox Kings best friend and Gokus first teacher. He'd also been the Champion of Earth enough times that one of the biggest arenas in the Tenkaichi Budoukai stadium is named after him.

The ghost of Gohan praised Goku, had a short whispered conversation with Master Roshi and then returned to the afterlife. I'm not sure if a living person can shake a ghosts hand. Perhaps it's just as well that there wasn't time for introductions. I wouldn't have known what to say.

All the stories that I'd heard about Uranai Baba had completely failed to do justice to her skill. The most creative stories paled next to her actual abilities. Temporary reincarnation, wandering in and out of the afterlife as she pleased... The stories had never mentioned anything like this. The stories _had_ mentioned her psychic talents but only in the fortune teller context. It was disturbing to realize that she didn't have to go into a trance or anything to read your mind.

Uranai Baba reminded us that we'd come here to ask her a question and then she answered the question before we could ask it. Goku left, found the last dragonball, came back, pulled Upa onto the golden cloud and then left again, with all the dragonballs.

I want to take a moment out and say that this was the beginning of something ugly. I didn't realize it back then, not right away. So much else had happened. It didn't sink in that Goku had been utterly out of his league. All Gokus talent, all of his power - it wasn't enough. He couldn't, in his own words, 'fix things' by himself. He had needed help. And the help of his friends hadn't been good enough either. No. Instead Goku had to have the dragonballs. He had to summon the dragon.

Some people on Earth, some warriors - they have developed grudges against Goku. As near as I can figure out, these people blame Goku for making regular human warriors look bad by comparison. Or something like that.

Personally... I don't blame Goku. Not anymore. I can't. I know better. I blame the dragonballs. They are extremely useful artifacts but Goku spent a decent portion of his life measuring his own power against them. You have to remember that for at least a few years before the age of 12, Goku had lived in solitude. So he was accustomed to being self-sufficient. He didn't like to rely on others. He didn't want to burden anyone. For a while there... I think that maybe Goku felt as if he had to become capable of everything that the dragonballs were capable of. That way he wouldn't need to depend on the artifacts, he could fix things himself. It was an impossible goal, even for Goku, but he would die more than once before accepting the fact.

**ooxoo**


	8. 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 8: 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai**

**B**efore we left Uranai Babas home, she commented that Goku would become the Champion of the World. I don't think any of us were truly surprised to hear this. However, the news did make us all kind of anxious. Might the world actually become endangered soon? Or by 'Champion of the Earth' did Uranai Baba mean that Goku would win the next Tenkaichi Budoukai? We didn't know. And while Gokus fighting skill was unquestioned, he was still rather naive. What if he got into a situation that required more brains than brawn to escape?

Master Roshi decided that for Goku, travel would be the best education. So Roshi gave Goku the mission of traveling around the Earth. Literally. Goku accepted the mission and climbed aboard his cloud. Master Roshi decided to add a new rule. He took Nimbus away and told Goku to walk, run or swim around the Earth. No riding on clouds or in vehicles.

Yes, it did seem harsh but the rule made sense. Goku would have gotten around the Earth too fast if he'd ridden Nimbus. He wouldn't have met as many people or learned as much if he'd just flown around the planet on a cloud. None of us envied Goku yet we weren't too worried about him. If anyone could survive the mission, Goku could. It was the final rule that made our jaws drop. Roshi finished by saying that he expected to see Goku at the next Tenkaichi Budoukai. So Goku now had a time limit. Three years may sound like a long time but if you're walking from one end of the planet to the other, it might not be long enough. And on top of this, Goku was going to have find time to train. And hunt. And sleep. And...

But hey - this IS Goku we're talking about. He accepted the mission, said his farewells and left. Just like that. No returning to the Kame House to pack a few things. No asking for a map or planning a route. He just walked off. We watched until Goku was out of sight. Impressed. Full of admiration. And privately trying to decide whether he was more insane than naive.

Goku was 13 when he left. Guess this was his spirit quest.

After Goku was out of sight, the rest of us parted ways. Bulma attended a private school and spent all of her free time at Capsule Corp. Puar and Oolong each experimented with various careers. Lunch... Lunch has two personalities which means that she spends a large amount of her time confused. See when Lunch sneezes, her hair turns blond and her eyes turn green. It's a completely different personality - we call her Kushami, she has the tendency to pull guns out of thin air and shoot at people for no real reason - and she has no memory of anything that Lunch said or did. Likewise, Lunch has no memory of anything that Kushami does or says. So if Lunch is busy folding laundry or cooking a meal and she sneezes, the result is a very confused and angry Kushami. If Kushami sneezes while robbing a train or something, the result is a confused and terrified Lunch.

Krillen, Master Roshi and I each resumed our training. Sometimes at Capsule Corp, sometimes at Kame Island, sometimes elsewhere. We sparred together every now and then but we did the bulk of the exercises and trials alone. Understand that the main goal of training is to improve your own abilities. If you train with other people, you tend to compare yourself with them. Competition is okay but it can undermine a persons concentration. Training alone allows better focus on your own skills.

We didn't hear from Goku but we did hear about him, occasionally. He made the headlines a few times by saving villages here and there. So we knew that Goku was still alive and we knew he was making progress. As a friend of Gokus, I was glad to hear it. As a warrior, it motivated me to train a lot harder than I might have otherwise.

Three years passed quickly. The day of the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai arrived.

Krillen was age 17, I was 20 and we'd expected to have control of the tournament again. Roshi had also entered again and Goku... We were all fairly certain that Goku had won just by showing up.

Yea. He made it. Goku, now age 16, was nearly late for the tournament but he made it. He'd had all kinds of adventures on his long walk but we didn't have a chance to trade stories right away. Goku had to get signed up, get cleaned up and get dry. The Tenkaichi Budoukai stadium is located on a large island in the southern corner of the world. Goku must have been swimming for days because the harbor that he claimed to have started from was on the north side of the continent. He was soaked.

So Goku went off to get ready for the tournament. Lunch, Bulma, Oolong and Puar left in the hopes of getting good seats. Krillen and I tried to guess how much more dangerous Goku might have become. Before heading to the locker room, Goku had mentioned something about training with a sensei called Korin but we weren't sure who Korin was. Er. Well. We'd both heard legends that included a mythical creature named Korin but... Goku couldn't mean THAT Korin, right?

Honestly, we should have known better.

Anyway. Before the preliminaries began, Master Roshi encountered an old rival. The Crane Master. This guy was bad news. The Crane Master had ties to the Red Ribbon Army, his little brother held the title Worlds Greatest Assassin and think about this - the Crane Master had to have been to be abnormally strong if he was able to hold his own against Roshi. The Crane Master wasn't alone. He had two students with him and he claimed that they had come to remind the world what real fighting should look like. This is how we met Tenshinhan and Chaozu. Not exactly a pleasant introduction. Needless to say, insults were traded and the disrespect quickly became mutual.

Krillen and I both have a long history of being underestimated. We've tolerated it, in some cases and ignored or avoided it, in most others. But in this case... It wasn't just our honor and reputation that was being insulted, it was the honor and reputation of the entire Kame School. Master Roshi and all his teachers and _their_ teachers and all their students, all their work.

For any martial arts student, there's a certain amount of loyalty and faith involved in the practice. If you don't believe in the effectiveness of a certain fighting style - then why bother to study it? You can't truly master something if you have a bias against it. So, logically, if you value your education and take pride in the practice then you have to have respect for the dojo, the sensei, the traditions and the history. And you have to be willing to defend these things. Krillen and I had accepted that. We were prepared to defend the Kame School reputation. Master Roshis rival became our enemy. Tenshinhan and Chaozu had also accepted, they were prepared to defend the reputation of the Crane Master and the Tsuru Dojo. To an outsider it probably would have seemed absurd that a bunch of intelligent, reasonable adults could go from complete strangers to archenemies in less than five minutes. But between warriors, it made perfect sense. We all exchanged death threats and the tournament continued.

So now there were six warriors who were far beyond average human strength in the competition. Between us, we tore through the initial matches in record time. We eliminated over a hundred or so competitors and were left to face off against each other.

Krillen, Master Roshi and I were nervous because we'd kept an eye on Tenshinhan and Chaozus matches - we'd seen how they fought. Tenshinhan was just brutal, between his strength and his speed he hadn't had a fight last more than two minutes. Chaozu was also a real concern for us because he defeated most of his opponents with telepathically induced heart attacks. We'd never trained against anything like that and we weren't sure how we'd manage. We didn't even realize yet that Tenshinhan and Chaozu could also use energy blasts. Chaozu hovered and induced heart attacks but he didn't use any energy blasts in those preliminary battles. Tenshinhan had also demonstrated the ability to hover but if he used an energy blast in any of his preliminary fights then we missed it. Except...

Goku was there. Most of his preliminary opponents had been veteran warriors - respected and feared martial artists of near legendary status - but of course, Goku hadn't heard of any of them before. And he'd defeated all of his opponents with ridiculous ease. We tried not to be surprised although in truth, Goku probably intimated us more than anyone else there. Because we knew that Goku was holding back. We knew that Goku wasn't kidding when he called a fight easy. It made us wonder if there was anything left on Earth that Goku might consider a challenge. And that's kinda how Tenshinhan figures into this. Krillen, Roshi and I had mostly focused on Chaozus matches because we were trying to spot a weakness in his psychic talent. But Goku had watched more of Tenshinhans fights.

It should have been a warning to us. Goku is kinda dead-end honest, that's just the way he is. You could be his best friend in the world but if you're awful at something - he'll tell you, point blank. He won't lie to avoid hurting your feelings. The way his mind works, I'm not sure that lying would even register as an option. So when Goku says that a warrior is skilled... Yea. It definitely should have been a warning.

Believe it or not, in its own skewed way, luck was with me that day. I drew a match against Tenshinhan. The fight started out okay. We were fairly well matched. At least, that's how it seemed. Eventually I resorted to an energy attack in an attempt to gain the advantage. No, I hadn't ever used an energy blast before - but I'd come close in several of my training sessions. So it took some effort, not just to create the attack but also to act halfway casual about it. I wanted Tenshinhan to believe that energy attacks were nothing new for me, that I'd been holding back. That's how I planned to gain control of the fight. And it almost worked. I created a kamehameha. I fired it.

And then the simple flaw in my plan was revealed. I was only _pretending_ that energy attacks were normal for me, I was only _pretending_ that I'd been holding back. But Tenshinhan... He _did _actually know energy attacks. And he _had_ actually been holding back.

So instead of being blown out the arena or injured or frightened or even startled - like pretty much any other warrior would have been - Tenshinhan just stood there and calmly threw my own kamehameha attack back at me. My very first kamehameha and it gets thrown back at me. Augh. How the heck...?! I don't remember much else about that fight. The only vivid memory that has remained is the sensation of hitting the ground. Hard.

I woke up in a hospital later and discovered that I had a broken leg. The hospital was... Uhm. Well. Puar, Bulma and Lunch - in Kushami mode - were all there and each of them was stressed out for various reasons. Try to imagine the scene. Nevertheless, being in the hospital might have saved my life. I honestly think that if I had still been at the tournament, I probably would have been killed alongside Krillen.

Yea. Krillen drew a match against Chaozu. It was a close fight for a while but Krillen managed to win by breaking Chaozus concentration. Then Roshi got roughed up before he forfeited to Tenshinhan. Goku kicked Krillen out of the tournament - again. That left Tenshinhan to face off against Goku, which was one heck of a fight. Tenshinhan and Goku probably had the exact same power levels - or close to it. So that battle actually came down to strategy instead of just raw power.

Tenshinhan won eventually, surprising us all a bit. At first. In retrospect, it's not as amazing. Strategy wasn't exactly Gokus strong suit back then.

And then Krillen died. He was killed right after the tournament. I remember watching Gokus reaction from the tv in the hospital. Brrr. I'd never seen Goku so angry - and I'd seen him as a giant were-monkey, remember? But this anger... It was worse. This anger... When Goku transforms into a giant were-monkey, that anger is wild and scary but there isn't any thought behind it. Not that we can tell. The giant were-monkey just stomps everything that happens to have the misfortune of being in its way. But this anger had intentions behind it. This anger had direction. That's what made it worse. We weren't used to seeing Goku that angry. We'd never really imagined that he was capable of being that angry. He'd destroyed the Red Ribbon Army without even being angry, by all accounts. But when Krillen was killed... For half an instant... From what I saw... Goku wasn't himself. Or maybe he was, actually. Maybe he was completely himself. Maybe he was the warrior who didn't understand how this could have happened and the naive kid who wanted to fix things on his own and the loyal friend who was already blaming himself for not protecting someone better. I don't know. Whatever was going on in his mind... Goku took off in pursuit of Krillens murderer before anyone could stop him.

Strong as Goku is - and angry as he was, in that moment - I'm not sure that anyone at the tournament stadium would have even wanted to try and stop him. They probably couldn't have stopped him.

**ooxoo**


	9. Never a dull moment

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 9: Never a dull moment**

**I** didn't exactly feel safe in the hospital anymore so I dragged myself out of there. Plus I was angry as well, Krillen had been my friend too. And he was only 17 and jeez... Nobody deserves to die like that. Tenshinhan and Chaozu - Chaozu who'd almost killed Krillen earlier that day - they had been trained as professional assassins and even THEY were upset by the abrupt, bloody manner in which Krillen had been murdered.

Rememeber Pilaf? Turns out he remembered us. The little blue dwarf had recruited some help from the pure evil department and I mean that in the most literal way possible.

Time for another introduction. Kami, the Namekian god of Earth, is pure good. We know this for a fact because a couple hundred years ago, Kami purged all the evil from his body. The result was a Namek of pure evil called Piccolo Daimio. As soon as he came into existence, Piccolo Daimio set out to conquer the world. Mutaito, the legendary warrior that had been Master Roshis sensei, was the only thing that prevented Daimio from being successful. Mutaito had sealed Piccolo Daimio into a denshi jar. Now, nearly two hundred years later, Pilaf had found that denshi jar and opened it - releasing Piccolo Daimio into the world once more.

So we had to deal with Pilaf again. More importantly, we also had to deal with a certain evil Namek who remembered Master Roshi. Krillen was dead, Goku had run off and I was in all kinds of pain because I really shouldn't have snuck out of the hospital to return to the stadium. We were fairly certain that Goku was - or would soon be - dead. We had two reasons to believe this. First, the battle with Tenshinhan had drained Goku significantly. Second, the creature that Goku was pursuing had been strong enough to blast Krillen to pieces.

That's how Tenshinhan and Chaozu became part of our group. They were the only warriors left who were in decent enough health to work with Master Roshi and try to save the world. They didn't have much of a choice really. We had all made it to the finals of the tournament, so we were all on the list of people that Piccolo Daimio wanted dead.

Daimio wasn't just taking over the world this time. He was gathering the dragonballs and also planned to kill every single decent warrior on the planet. That way nobody left alive would be strong enough to oppose him.

It was a race against time more than anything else. Tenshinhan, Chaozu and Master Roshi had to get to the dragonballs first and they had to stop Piccolo Daimio before he killed everyone on his list. Things were looking bleak. Goku had taken the dragonball radar with him so the group was delayed while Bulma built a second radar. To their credit though - Master Roshi, Tenshinhan and Chaozu managed to collect five of the dragonballs in record time. Unfortunately for them, the last two dragonballs had already been found. By Piccolo Daimio.

The group had agreed to meet back at Kame Island. So while Master Roshi, Tenshinhan and Chaozu were dragonball hunting, the rest of us packed up and left. And... I don't like to think about it, much less talk about it but... There are some things I can't forget. Well. Krillen had been killed in the mens locker room of the Tenkaichi Budoukai Stadium. Bulma, Kushami - both of them are very headstrong ladies but there are some rules that even they won't break. Besides, they were outnumbered. By guards. And martial artists. Puar, Oolong - they could have come but they weren't up to it. So. I was the one who got to collect what was left of Krillen.

I had seen dead animals before. And I'd seen human skeletons. But... Not corpses. I hadn't seen a corpse before. Not in person, you know. Not in detail. I'd seen corpses on tv shows and in movies but not like this. And not mauled. And especially not belonging to anyone that I knew and respected and had spoken to recently. So collecting Krillen...was...an experience that I'd rather forget. If only I could.

With all due to respect to Krillen - no matter how strong he becomes or how much he accomplishes - in some part of my brain, he's always going to be dead.

The fact that a friend was dead was hard enough to deal with. But the related ideas that began to surface in my mind... Made it much worse. This went against everything I'd been taught. It was like having a veil taken away. The world suddenly seemed clearer and far less secure. My mind was full of _what if?_ questions that would linger long after the issue had been resolved. What if Krillen had gone to the locker room a few minutes earlier? What if he had gone a few minutes later? Would he still be alive? What if Goku or Roshi or anyone else had gone to the locker room instead? What if they had all gone in together? What if...? And with all of the questions, there was one sensible conclusion for me to reach. Life... Death... In the grand scheme of things what it comes down to, really, is just plain _chance_. Timing. Luck. Fate. Destiny. The roll of the cosmic dice. Whatever you want to call it. Because no matter how strong you are, no matter how much you train - the universe doesn't play by our rules. Never has, never will. And the same goes for evil villians.

This concept would become more important later on in my life. It would influence my attitude towards fighting and training. Not just because that was the first time I'd seen a corpse but because it was fairly obvious that Krillen hadn't been given a chance to defend himself. All his hard work, all his talent, all his ability... It didn't matter. It hadn't saved him.

Being somewhat traumatized, I can't say what exactly happened when Piccolo Daimio confronted Roshi and the others. Tenshinhan was the only one who survived that encounter. He called the Kame House - the number is listed in the phone books - to let us know that Roshi, Chaozu and Shenlong had all been killed in front of him. Tenshinhan explained that Master Roshi had inflicted some sort of temporary paralysis on him and that the timing of Roshis action was the main reason that he was still alive. So I'd wild guess that Tenshinhan was in a considerable amount of pain - physical and emotional. But having been trained as an assassin, he didn't let it show. Much.

And right about here is when I gained a lot of respect for Tenshinhan. I mean think about this: _he CALLED us_. Earlier that day we'd been his worst enemies, he'd been assigned to kill us and now - despite everything - he's the one turning around and keeping us informed. Goku, Krillen - if it had been them instead of Tenshinhan, I don't think they would have called us. Me... If I had been in Tenshinhans place then I know that making phone calls to former enemies wouldn't have been a top priority.

Anyway. The biggest surprise in all this news was Shenlongs death. Shenlong, the eternal dragon, was dead and to this day that just sounds _wrong_. How does an eternal dragon die? I'd thought that Shenlong was supposed to be invincible...

Recall that at the time, we were convinced that Goku was dead. So Tenshinhan was, in our eyes, the strongest warrior left alive on the planet. If Tenshinhan couldn't save us from Piccolo Daimio then we didn't know who could. For better or worse, Tenshinhan basically shared our opinion. He was convinced that somehow the world being endangered was all his fault. We couldn't have talked him out of that fight - Lunch tried - no matter how suicidal it was. And it was suicidal because Tenshin had taken the liberty of learning an ancient energy technique. The mafuba attack. He was planning to use the attack and seal Daimio back into a denshi jar, at the cost of his own life.

Bulma was actually being protective of me at the time. Guess that when the whole planet is threatened, she doesn't care as much about whatever disagreements we've had. Bulma was afraid. She didn't want to be left alone and I was having a hard time convincing her that I should go help.

I didn't honestly think that I'd be much help against Piccolo Daimio but I had to try, for everyones sake. I had to avenge Krillen, Master Roshi and Goku - without the dragonballs around, I assumed that they would be dead permanently. Besides, I knew that I was on that list of victims-to-be. So I wanted to get out of there. I expected there to be an assassin tracking me down and I didn't want that murderer to have a shot at killing Bulma, Puar, Oolong and Lunch as well. Last but not least, I figured that if I was gonna die anyway then I'd rather die fighting.

The very second that Capsule Corp was in more immediate danger, Bulma agreed to let me go join the battle. I was already preparing to go to the fight by then. I'd heard on the news that Piccolo Daimio had seized the World Palace so I had no doubts about where the fight was taking place.

Take note: the World Palace is probably the only structure on Earth that rivals Capsule Corp in size.

I couldn't fly yet. So I was stuck in an airship, in heavy traffic and traveling halfway around the world. It was pure torture not to be able to travel faster. I spent the whole trip sitting there, wondering who might still be alive. Feeling paranoid as well as helpless. My worst fear at that time was that I'd be left to confront Piccolo Daimio alone.

Be aware that I wasn't traveling alone. Puar was there. Oolong was there. Even Bulma had decided to come with me. Now that Daimio was posing a threat to her hometown, Bulma wanted to attack Piccolo Daimio as well. Kushami would have also come with us except that she sneezed. As Lunch, she had no idea what was going on and no desire to fight anything. However Lunch was glad to come with us anyway because she wanted the chance to see Tenshinhan again. So my main concern was for the safety of others. Oolong and Puar... I worried about them but not too much because I felt that the shifters could each hold their own. They might not be able to fight Daimio but they'd at least have decent chance of outwitting him. Lunch... As long as she sneezed, became Kushami again and stayed that way for a while then she would be fine. But Bulma... Bulma wasn't a warrior, she couldn't shapeshift or pull large guns out of thin air and she had the bad habit of being fearless while insulting others. Thus I was most concerned for her. Because I really didn't want to contemplate what might happen if Bulma just walked up to Daimio, smacked him and then called him the kind of names that don't bear repeating in public.

We were about ten minutes away from arriving when the tv in our airship reported that there was a young boy fighting at the World Palace. Guess who wasn't as dead as we'd assumed? Points to anyone who said Goku. I swear, that kid can stand up to anything. It was a spark of hope for us though and we were cheering for Goku as we closed on the castle.

When we arrived, the fight was over. The first person we crossed paths with was Tenshinhan. He looked like something you might see in a zombie movie. He'd taken a beating and in all truth, with his injuries it was a miracle that he was still conscious. Tenshinhan managed to explain to us that Goku had won the fight and had then gone off with some friend of his to get medical attention. We were kind of appalled that Goku and his friend had just left Tenshin behind to die. But Tenshinhan told us that he'd refused an offer for help because he had intended to call the Kame House again, to let us know that the fight was over. Tenshinhan also insisted that he wasn't in that bad of shape. Then he fainted. Oi.

It's just as well that he fainted. Tenshinhan is one of the most stubborn people on the planet. If he hadn't fainted, he probably wouldn't have let us help him. Tenshinhan had been seriously planning to die that day. It had been rough day for him. He'd won the Tenkaichi Budoukai - at a price. I don't know all the details but I guess that towards the end of the final match, Tenshinhan had gained respect for Goku. The Crane Master, feeling betrayed, had threatened to kill both of his students. So Tenshinhan had been disowned and even threatened by his own teacher - the very teacher whose reputation and honor he'd been fighting to defend. And now Chaozu, the Crane Masters only other student and therefore the only person on the planet who could have related to Tenshins situation, was dead. Plus Tenshinhan was still blaming himself for causing the world to be in trouble. So, yea. Depressed is a slight understatement. I doubt that Tenshinhan had refused medical treatment for the reasons he gave us. I'm fairly convinced that if we hadn't arrived when we did, Tenshinhan would have killed himself.

Obviously, we didn't let that happen. Bulma drove back to Kame Island. Puar and Oolong had a philosophical debate. Lunch and I applied the bandages. Take note - Lunch is a very kind personality but the concept of pain is almost alien to her. So Lunch doesn't know much about first aide. I had to teach her about using the bandages to make splints and slings. Tenshinhan spent a while drifting between consciousness and unconsciousness. By the time we arrived back at the Kame House, he was in good enough health to stand up on his own and he told us about everything that had happened in more detail.

Tenshinhan couldn't believe that I'd helped save him. After all, he'd sent me to the hospital earlier. I told him I had better things to do with my life than carry grudges.

We had just barely gotten settled down at the Kame House when Goku burst in. Goku said something about god and wishing people back to life, grabbed his bo-staff and hurriedly left.

Not too long after Gokus departure, Shenlong appeared outside the Kame House. Weird eh? Not only can the the eternal dragon die - he can make house calls. Guess the rules are a bit different when Shenlong dies. As long as you can revive Shenlong, you can use the dragonballs more than once a year. So we made the wish to undo all of the damage Piccolo Daimio had caused. Abruptly the Kame House was crowded since Krillen, Roshi and Chaozu were back with us. It was a good thing. Strange - but good.

I couldn't help but think of them a smidge differently. This would last for a while since I'd never known anyone who had been dead before. Naturally, I had a lot of questions. What was it like, being dead? What about reincarnation, what was that like? Did any of our reincarnated friends remember what had happened? Did they know that they'd died? And if they didn't remember then should we tell them right away? What if they didn't believe us? What if the news made them go into shock? How are you supposed to treat someone who has been dead for a day? Is it like a flu, where the patient has to get lots of rest and fluids and probably shouldn't have too many visitors? Or can you - should you - just treat the person as if nothing abnormal has happened? Physically, our friends seemed to be in good health. But what about mentally and emotionally?

We weren't given a chance to properly welcome them back or try to determine what kind of state they were in. Shenlongs presence continued to demand our immediate attention. The dragon informed us that we wouldn't be able to see Goku until the next Tenkaichi Budoukai which would be held in three years. Then Shenlong left. It was odd and rather eerie. Shenlong didn't leave in the traditional sense of the word, the dragon just sort of faded from view.

Tenshinhan had to train for the next tournament. He'd won the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai so at the next tournament, the 23rd, he would be the defending champion. Chaozu decided to train as well. He might have had a million reasons for his choice but the only reason Chaozu shared was that he wanted to try and keep pace with his best friend, so that Tenshinhan would have someone to spar against. Krillen eventually chose to train because he expected to once again be pitted against Goku. By then it was a trend - Krillen'd had to fight against Goku at every tournament he'd been to.

Me... I could have backed out then and there. I didn't. I decided to hang around for awhile. I hadn't really felt connected to the group before this. I hadn't understood how important my friends were to me until they'd died. So with them back to life, I was up for spending some time with them.

**ooxoo**


	10. Korins Tower

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 10: Korins Tower**

**T**hree years passed. We didn't spend the whole time training either.

Tenshinhan and Chaozu came to Kame Island but they both refused to actually set foot in the Kame House. Despite the fact that the Crane Master had turned against them, they were still students of the Tsuru style. They didn't want to abandon their fighting techniques and they didn't wish to impose on the Kame School either. So they set up a couple of tents on the beach. I'm not sure why they bothered. They were hardly ever there. Tenshinhan and Chaozu split up for a while - to cover more ground, I guess - and explored the world, searching for a new place that they could call home. After about five months, they had narrowed it down to a list of around thirty sites. They spent the next year and half visiting the places, debating the pros and cons of each site and eventually moving into more than one of the locations.

Did they build the houses or buy the houses or inherit them? Did they collect their belongings from the Tsuru Dojo or anywhere else that they had ever lived in the past? Or did they start over, with everything new? I really don't know.

The only reason that any of us even knew they were house hunting was because Lunch went with them sometimes and she talked about it. Tenshinhan and Chaozu didn't speak to us on this issue. They didn't even say goodbye or anything when they moved off the island. We woke up one day and the tents were gone and that was it. Guess former assassins have to be extra careful about where they live and who they give their address to.

Still. Even with Tenshinhan and Chaozu absent most of the time, the Kame House felt kinda cramped. Roshi was always there. Umigame, the turtle, was there a lot. Krillen was there most of the time. Lunch was there but only when she wasn't robbing banks, hijacking trains or hanging out with Tenshinhan and Chaozu. Oolong, Puar and I were unofficially living there. And then there was Bulma.

Bulma had kind of adopted Kame Island as... Uhm. Well. Not a second home. More like a project or a hobby. That's what Kame Island was to Bulma - a hobby. The Capsule Corp mansion had all kinds of technology in it. The Kame House didn't. Apparently on one of Bulmas early visits to the Kame House, she had built and installed a telephone there. And she had enjoyed doing that so much that now she was determined to install a television. And a radio. And an intercom. And a microwave. And an air conditioner. And a few solar panels. And pretty much anything else that she could think of. I do believe that - much to Master Roshis dismay - Kame Island went through a phase where Bulma had turned the place into a tropical theme park, complete with serving robots and sound effects and light shows.

I'm no technical genius but having so many bundles of wire and electrical gadgets near an ocean struck me as hazardous. Not to mention annoying. So Oolong, Puar and I left Kame Island for a while. We went back to Ox Kings mountain to help him with the castle. Krillen eventually joined us, so he got to meet Ox King as well. And in spite of the fact that I frequently avoided Bulma, I was on better terms with her than I'd ever been before. Which translates to: _we held hands sometimes and didn't yell at each other quite so often. _Our relationship never got seriously romantic but the improvement felt like a step in that direction, anyway.

Funny, in retrospect. And kind of sad. I don't know why I thought it was love. We got along best when we avoided each other.

Maybe it was the double dates that fooled me. Yea. Bulma and I double dated. We hung out with various couples that Bulma knew socially and also, once or twice, with Lunch and Tenshinhan. And it wasn't bad because at heart, Bulma is a socialite. She acts different - _nicer _- when she's around a bunch of people. As long as the location is not any of her old schools then she likes being around groups of people. When she's just around one person then eventually she gets on their nerves and vice versa. Thus double dating was a massive improvement for our friendship because Bulma and I didn't argue with each other as much.

Lunch and Tenshinhan were my favorite couple to hang out with but that's just because I knew both of them. The other couples were all people that the Briefs family could afford to mingle with. I didn't know any of them. And... Well.

I don't know if it was Bulmas intention to make me feel like an idiot on these dates but she usually managed to. I kinda felt like an outsider around these people. They weren't orphans, they weren't martial artists - there was nothing for me to relate to. So these dates were... Improvements over past attempts and that's about it. Because the people that Bulma knows socially, a lot of them are rich and quite a few of them are Capsule Corp employees. So I'd have to dress up and pretend to be interested while these people droned on about difficulties with servants or their most recent exotic vacation or - even worse - their ideas about computer programming. And let's face it, they also made me feel poor. Because the other couples - the guy would pick up the bill. Plus the girl would always be showing off some gift with a seven-digit price tag that she'd been given on the date - a car, a diamond necklace, something. Always something. And then these ladies would turn to Bulma and ask ever so sweetly if I'd given her anything. And Bulma would always say no. Which wasn't always true. But I guess that the occasional dozen roses doesn't count as a real present in those circles.

And yes, as awful as all that was, it was STILL an improvement over past attempts.

Tenshinan and Lunch were always very casual. We never had to dress up or go to an eight-star restaurant to hang out with them. I never felt out of place or under pressure to sell a kidney in order to afford a gift for Bulma. And they were certainly the most interesting couple to watch. Understand that Tenshinhan and Lunch both adhere to an ancient traditional code. I don't know how but this is something that both of Lunchs minds agree on.

If you study the surviving ancient scrolls of our world, you might notice that the word _love_ does not appear. Ever. Not even once. Instead, the scrolls talk about _duty_. Because people had to fulfill duties to each other. They had to defend each others reputations, for example. Marriage was more of a political business arrangement than anything else. So the aspect of affection, if it existed at all, was resigned to being completely private. Lunch and Tenshinhan didn't verbalize their affection or even hold hands or anything but... Well. Lunch would calmly threaten to kill anyone that so much as did a double take at Tenshinhans third eye. And Tenshinhan more or less returned the favor by calmly threatening to destroy anything that offended Lunch. And both of them would blush and issue slightly less calm death threats if anyone mentioned that they seemed to love each other. Heh. Guess they felt more at ease with the concept of duty. You know... Maybe they're onto something, though.

The dating idea did eventually die out again. No severe argument this time. Bulma just decided that she was too embarrassed to be seen with me in public. I shrugged and said okay because I really didn't care anymore. So we drifted. Again. I returned full force to wandering and training, for lack of other ambitions.

Master Roshi was the only one who completely backed out of training. After the fiasco with Daimio, Roshi claimed that he had nothing more to teach us and returned to retirement. However Roshi did recommend a place where we could continue our training, a place that Goku had also mentioned before. Korins Tower.

I shouldn't have been fazed by anything anymore - right? Goku was almost constantly doing the impossible. Sometimes though, the rest of us could follow in his footsteps and that was always a bit of a surprise. I mean... I'd met Master Roshi. I'd seen the ghost of Grandpa Gohan. I'd learned the kamehameha. I'd come across legendary people and items so frequently in recent years that legendary was starting to seem dull. But Korin was _mythical_. People weren't even sure if Korin actually existed. Philosophers and scholars debated it. Scientists and explorers - some had tried to climb the tower. Some had tried to just take pictures of the top of the tower, using satellites and airplanes. All of them had failed to reach any conclusions.

This didn't prevent Korin from being worshipped in at least nineteen different forms with something like fifty different formal titles, many of them conflicting. In one tribe, Korin is called the wind god and is portrayed as a leafy blur. In another culture, he is regarded as a war god and symbolized as a rather evil looking thundercloud. In a few remote villages, Korin is called the guardian of small fishing boats and is represented by metallic sculptures of a fish jumping from a lily. At most reputable martial arts tournaments there will be statues that, to be perfectly honest, look like a winged monkey sitting on a dragon. And those are meant to represent Korin as the divine patron of all martial arts. Because some of the most popular stories told at tournaments would claim that Korin was an otherworldly being - an alien, some said or a god, others insisted - who came to Earth for the sole purpose of teaching primitive humans how to defend themselves.

Really, we had no idea what to expect from Korin. Would he be a leafy blur or an evil thundercloud? A winged monkey sitting on a dragon or a fish jumping from a flower? Did Korin even exist? Was he an alien? Was he an immortal? Was Korin actually a _he_? Had Korin been mankinds first sensei? Would Korin agree to train us?

It was kind of hard to get used to the idea of training with someone mythical. Someone who could be divine. Someone who might not be human. Someone older than human civilization on Earth. Nevertheless... Goku had survived the training. Roshi had survived it, a long time ago. So there had to be _something _worthwhile at the top of Korins Tower.

Krillen, Tenshinhan, Chaozu and I each made the trip to Korins Tower at some point. We agreed that it would be best for each of us to go alone instead of going all at once. Recall that the main goal of training - any sort of training - is self-improvement. Which means that you have to focus on your own skills, no comparing yourself to anyone else. That's why we split for Korins Tower. Each of us had expected that once we arrived at the top of the tower - if we made it to the top and if Korin accepted our requests for training - then we'd be Korins only student.

We were wrong. Because we didn't know about Yajirobe. Yet.

Korin, as it turns out, did exist. He is smug humanoid white cat - or at least, that's the only form I've ever seen him take. He does know the martial arts. All of them. Very well. And no wonder. He's been practicing martial arts for a very long time. The few genuine hints we've had about Korins age indicate that he is comfortably more than 800 years old.

Now chasing Korin and climbing the tower - yes climbing, remember none of us flew yet - that was the training I got. Not easy but it wasn't exactly exciting work either. I don't know what had inspired me to take my sword along but I'm glad that I did. Thanks to the blade, I got in quite a bit of extra sparring against Yajirobe.

Oh. Yea. Yajirobe. Suppose you might want to know when he waltzed into this story. Well, I didn't meet Yajirobe until I went to Korins Tower for training but by then he'd already saved Gokus life. Twice. All I know for sure is that Yajirobe had - wisely - stayed out of the fights against Piccolo Daimio. So after Goku had been beaten to a pulp, Yajirobe'd had the strength left to pick Goku up and carry him all the way up Korins Tower. Honestly Yajirobe deserves a heck of a lot of credit here. Goku was age 16 at the time and with all that muscle mass, the kid wasn't exactly lightweight. I don't think I could carry Goku that far. I sure as he...heaven in this case...couldn't have scaled Korins Tower with the extra weight.

For those who don't know, Korins Tower... Uhm. I guess your world has similar structures. Eiffel Tower, the Seattle Space Needle - except that they're shorter. Much, much shorter. The top of Korins Tower is about twenty yards from being in Earth orbit. So even when you're halfway up the tower, you can't see the top. Okay? Got the mental image? Good. Now imagine climbing it. Go, on. Try to imagine. Let me tell you, it's a looooong climb. I think it took me about a week to get to the top and the hardest part was just breathing at that altitude.

That's why we were all VERY grateful when Yajirobe started delivering the senzu beans to us. He saves us from repeating the trip up the tower. Even when most of us had learned to fly, getting to Korins place was still a challenge because breathing and high altitudes simply don't go together very well. Hmph. Flying at high altitudes... It's one of those things people seem to expect you to get used to. I don't know why. Not being able to breathe isn't exactly the kind of thing a person WANTS to get used to. Trust me.

A side note. I learned, much later, that Korin is only allowed to accept one human student per every hundred years or so. I don't know who makes these rules or how anyone would enforce such rules but Korin keeps them. He only accepts one human student every century. And Goku didn't count because Goku wasn't human. We didn't know that about Goku back then. Goku didn't even know that. But Korin knew. And then there was Yajirobe, who is descended from some of Korins all-time favorite students. Hence the reason that Korin accepted Yajirobe for training. The rest of us... We were recommended by Roshi and Goku. So Korin never really agreed to train any of the rest of us. Instead, as a favor to Roshi and Goku, Korin just allowed us to join Yajirobes training.

It makes sense, I guess. The rest of us... We did all improve but looking back... Yajirobes improvement was probably the most drastic at that time. He had the benefit of Korins continuous supervision. He climbed the tower more often than the rest of us combined. He was able to spar with Krillen, Tenshinhan, Chaozu and I. Plus he was permitted to visit the Lookout to spar with Goku and Kami on occasion.

Anyway. Yajirobe and I were both happy to have crossed paths with a fellow swordsman. Yes, if I had used energy blasts then I'd have won. Easily. But most of the time, we just dueled. Yajirobe is a samurai and a swords master, his battle experience - not to mention his foot speed - made him a challenge. I don't know about winning and losing. I didn't care about that. I was just sparring.

I think I stayed on Korins Tower longer than anyone else. Except Yajirobe, he lives on that tower. As a result I became a lot faster, a bit stronger and much better with a sword. But... Maybe I should have just concentrated on the energy blasts like everyone else. Because someone had been watching Korin, Yajirobe and I train. Kami. So when it came time for the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai, Kami knew that I was more prepared for a sword fight than a martial arts tournament.

That's as good a place as any to close for now.

**ooxoo**


	11. 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 11: 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai**

**F**irst of all, on behalf of everyone out here: Happy Holidays!

I'm not entirely clear on this Christmas thing that I'm told is popular in your culture but it sounds kinda fun. Though if anyone tried to break into my house in the middle of the night, it wouldn't be good for them. Not even if they DID bring presents. I guess your world is full of people who are a bit more trusting than we are.

We have our own holidays here. New Years is a big deal. Basically the whole family and any close friends get together to share some good food. You honor the memories of the dead, sort out any grudges and pray for a good future. Oh, since I mentioned the controversial 'p-word' (pray) let me clarify something before anybody takes offense. In our world prayer is flat out part of the culture. We have religions too but you don't necessarily have to be a part of any religion to pray. That's all.

Some people visit shrines at New Years. Other people decorate their homes for the occasion. There's also a lot of special events around the time - classic films at the theaters and stuff - so it's never boring. My personal favorite part is watching the kites. Cause if you want to, you can write your regrets on a kite and then just let it fly away. I don't write on the kites often anymore - I don't regret much anymore - but it is always kinda nice to go to a park and watch other people letting go of their regrets. It's reassuring, I suppose. Makes me feel like I'm not the only person in the world who has made a few mistakes.

Anyway. Back to the story, where were we... Ah yes, the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai. What a tournament! I think the 23rd is my favorite out of all them just because - even with Master Roshi on the spectator side now - so many of my friends entered. Tenshinhan, Chaozu, Krillen, Goku and I had all entered the tournament under our own names. ChiChi, Yajirobe, Kami and Piccolo (well, he wasn't our friend yet...) had all entered the tournament in disguise.

Goku. Wow. I hadn't seen him in three whole years. Back then Goku had been at eye level with my waist. So when this guy who's at least a few inches taller than me comes up, grinning all goofy and says "Hey!" none of us - except maybe Lunch - recognized him right away. Not even Bulma. Although Bulma was slightly distracted by the hearts in her eyes. Yea, weird isn't it? She fell for Goku. I didn't mind. I was in too much shock at the sight of him.

And the shock got worse. "Uh... Goku where's your tail?"

"Oh, it just fell off one day." That's what he said, I swear. _It just fell off. _As casual as anything. As if he had barely even noticed that his own tail had fallen off.

We were all happy to see Goku again but afraid, very very afraid. Because his tail - that had been his only real weak point and now it was gone. In that instant Krillen, Master Roshi and I knew that Goku was untouchable. Tenshinhan and Chaozu probably knew before us because they could detect energy more easily than the rest of us, they could feel how much stronger Goku was. The rest of us didn't. Not yet.

Poor Krillen. My heart really went out to the kid. He was smiling and acting calm in the locker room but as soon as Goku had left, Krillen almost had a nervous breakdown. Krillen was age 20 at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai. (I was 23, Tenshin was also 23, Goku was 19 and I doubt that Chaozu ages.) He'd been pitted against Goku at every other tournament and he just knew that it had to happen again. Krillen had PLANNED on grabbing Gokus tail in their inevitable match but with the tail gone... He was convinced Goku would kill him by accident and he wasn't ready to die again.

Ironically enough, Chaozu is the one who came through for Krillen. Remember how Chaozu had almost killed Krillen at the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai? Chaozu still felt bad about that even though he'd lost the fight. So to make up for almost killing Krillen last time, Chaozu promised that Krillen would not die at the tournament this time. And Chaozu is one of the few people on Earth with enough psychic abilities to keep a promise like that. That little guy telepathically rigged the entire tournament. Do you hear me - _rigged_! I just have to say this because I know now that Chaozus interference is the only reason that ANY of us made it to the semi-finals without having to fight each other in the preliminaries.

Think of the Tenkaichi Budoukai as a business - the fights weren't totally random. The tournament officials had to make certain fights happen to sort of keep their ratings up, keep the sponsors happy and all that. So the tournament officials had _planned_ to have Tenshinhan face off against Goku early on and they had planned on the semi-traditional Goku vs. Krillen match. But Chaozu literally changed their minds.

For the record though, Chaozu wasn't the only one telepathically rigging the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai. Kami - god himself - was there in disguise and he was doing his fair share of picking the battles. Kami made changes to Chaozus plans for the tournament. Which is why poor Chaozu just about died in his first battle. No, Chaozu didn't pick his match against Cyborg Tao Pie Pie. Why the heck would he have done that to himself?! None of his psychic attacks work on cyborgs. Kami had chosen that match, knowing full well that it would send Chaozu to the hospital. Guess Kami didn't want anyone to interfere with his own plans.

Chaozu being drop kicked out of his match was our first real hint that something was very wrong. We should have paid more attention...

Yajirobe also had the misfortune to be taken out of the tournament early on. Kami eliminated him more directly. Kami was disguised - uh, in the sense of possessing someone else's body - as a scrawny nerd. Glasses, tie, pocket protector. The guy just looked so badly out of place! His whole personality too. If you say 'punch' to me then I think of martial arts but if you had said 'punch' to this guy, he probably would have wondered if it was fruit punch. Losing to this nerd was a fairly serious blow to Yajirobes pride. Although... Yajirobes pride was the only thing that was harmed. So perhaps Kami had done him a favor after all. I don't think Yajirobe could have escaped some injury if he'd made it further into the tournament. He's not a bad martial artist but his training had always emphasized the use of weapons. Yajirobe wasn't accustomed to fighting without his sword.

Oh. Didn't I mention that? Thankfully, no weapons are allowed at the Tenkaichi Budoukai. No guns, no knives, no swords, etc. Not that everyone follows the rules but Kushami('evil' Lunch) did. If weapons had been allowed, I think Kushami would have entered every Tenkaichi Budoukai that we went to and that could have been a blood bath. Instead she was content to watch the fights and harass the other spectators.

The rest of us went on to fight the matches that Chaozu had picked out for us.

Would you believe it - the tournament took more than a whole day! All the human fighters that had skipped the last couple tournaments, they came back with a vengeance. None of them were a match for our little elite group strength-wise but jeez... They were all a lot stronger than they had been. Most of them were fighting as if they had some holy mission to destroy us and reclaim the tournament for 'normal' people.

I had so many fights like that. Complete strangers bent on killing me just because of who my friends were. Just because they felt threatened by us. The way everyone acted really killed the spirit of the tournament. It was supposed to be a good-natured test of skill but I was starting to feel like I was a condemned criminal facing off against an angry mob. Guess that's when I first decided that maybe I wouldn't come back to the next tournament. It just wasn't fun anymore.

You know, I take back what I said earlier about the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai being my favorite tournament. Now that I think about it, I don't actually have a favorite tournament.

Need to point out that I have made peace with most of these memories. It took time. When you have an angry mob after you then you have to be constantly on your guard. You don't really get to stop and think about motivations. I didn't fully understand the mentality of my opponents back then. I'd assumed that it was mostly just warriors fighting for the sake of their own pride and ego. But looking back now... Remember the 21st Tenkaichi Budoukai? That was the deal breaker. Krillen, Roshi, Goku and I had changed the whole tournament format by ripping through the preleminaries in record time. Yea. It was an amazing feat for us - but extremely bad for business. And, as I've mentioned before, the Tenkaichi Budoukai does have a business aspect to it.

Prior to the 21st Tenkaichi Budoukai, the tournament used to take at least one month. The 21st Budoukai had lasted less than a day. The 22nd had followed suit and the 23rd was shaping up to be a day and a half, at most. Imagine. What if you owned a store, a hotel or a restaurant near the stadium? The difference to your income is going to be enormous, right? The towns around the stadium suffered because of our strength. A lot of their businesses had to close. The angry warriors coming after us... I understand, now. They had families to support and friends who had lost jobs. They needed the money. Shortening the tournament had meant less visitors, less customers, less fanfare and fewer chances to advertise. The professional fighters were hurt on another level as well. Because in order to run a dojo, to be called upon as a martial arts celebrity, to be booked for professional fights - you must have a reputation. And reputations are built on wins. And these people couldn't win. Some had dedicated their whole lives to training, they had worked hard and sacrificed so much for their moment in the Budoukai ring... If the tournament had remained a one-month-minimum affair, they would have had more of an opportunity to recover from any serious losses or mistakes. They would have had more time to meet, compare notes with and learn from other fighters. They would have had more fights. Shortening the tournament so much basically destroyed the social and educational tones of the whole event.

Used to be a cultural event, too. They used to have big parades before and after the Tenkaichi Budoukai. The banners from all the registered dojos in the world would be hung up. It was very formal, the opening ceremonies alone could take a whole day. There was a Wall of Honor, which functioned kind of like a hall of fame. They'd have a moment of silence and read the names of the accomplished martial artists who had passed away since the last tournament. The Budoukai had been designed to mainly take place in the afternoon - so originally during the morning and late evening of the tournament, the island was just full of special attractions. It was a place to be seen. Musicians, singers, actors and street magicians performed on the sidewalks, hoping to find fame. Carnivals and markets would fill the streets. Festivals and fight lessons were held in the parks all over the island. Opera groups would compete to perform the best stage fight, even without a stage. Doctors, monks, artists and politicians would come and give lectures. Fashion shows did warrior themes. Restaurants would sponser food fights. Local dojos would open their doors for tours. Smaller tournaments, with aspiring fighters hoping to earn scholarships to certain famous dojos, would be set up and sometimes even televised. There used to be _so much more _to the Budoukai than just the preleminiares and semi-finals... But we lost a lot of that, when we shortened the tournament. We didn't think of all the ripple effects. It was an awful thing to have to try and make peace with but I don't know if could have been avoided. We had all been trained to do our best. We were good students, we followed the instructions. We didn't hold back. We showed our respect by giving our best in the fights. Our best is what shortened the tournament.

The semi-finals of the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai rolled around all too soon. Krillen, Tenshinhan, Goku and I had made it that far without being pitted against each other thanks to Chaozu. And in retrospect, I have to believe that ChiChi also made it that far thanks to either Kami or Chaozu. She was a super skilled fighter for a 19 year old girl and all but... I just dunno. I saw some of her opponents - recognized them from previous tournaments - and I just feel that ChiChi won way too easily in most cases. My opinion though, that's all.

We were well aware of Piccolo by this time and either Chaozu or Kami (or both...) had kept us from having a fight against him. We were aware of Kami as well but we hadn't figured out who he was yet.

Ow. Ow. Ow.

That sums up my feelings on the semi-finals.

I drew a match against Kami and was beaten easily. Bulma was upset with me because I'd lost to a nerd. (sarcasm) Yay. (end sarcasm) But honestly, I wouldn't redo that match for anything. Kami may have effectively torched my pride but at least I wasn't badly hurt. That was the cleanest, least harmful tournament elimination that I'd ever had. And also, it keep me out of the other fights. Which was great. Because the tournament was getting ugly.

Krillen... Oh poor Krillen. Jeez. A 20 year old kid and I was thinking that life insurance would make a great present for his next birthday - if he lived that long. He would have done better if he HAD been pitted against Goku. Heck, he might have done decently against Tenshinhan. But no. Somehow Krillen ended up against Piccolo. And recall, Piccolo hated our guts at the time. (Not much has changed, eh?) Strong as Krillen was, he was badly shaken due to unpleasant memories concerning his last death. He'd been killed by one of Piccolo Daimios evil henchmen so this match was like re-living a nightmare. Krillen was scared stiff, easily overpowered and took a serious beating. Someone - Chaozu, Kami, maybe even Korin - HAD to have telepathically interfered in this match because it actually lasted a while and Krillen (just barely) didn't die. Expecting the worst, I had been on the verge of leaving to gather the dragonballs so that we could try to find a way to wish Krillen back. I'm glad that wasn't necessary. Goku and I carried Krillen out of the arena. Thanks to our training with Korin, we all knew about senzu beans by then so Krillens physical wounds healed very quickly. Too bad that senzu beans can't heal mental and emotional wounds as well.

ChiChi was still in the tournament. She drew a battle against Goku and he literally blew her away. That's all I saw. Goku powered up and knocked ChiChi out of the arena with the force of his aura. That's it. The announcer had barely introduced the match and it was over. Disappointing, in a way, but it was the first time in the whole tournament that Goku had shown a fraction of his true power. I know I wasn't the only one sitting there with a slack jaw when we sensed his ki.

Though Goku won the battle, ChiChi won the war. The match ended with a wedding announcement. Krillen, Roshi, Oolong and I promised to explain the concept of marriage to Goku after the tournament. Bulma acted indignant to cover her disappointment.

Tenshinhan came back from reducing Cyborg Tao to scrap metal. Yea, the cyborg had somehow made it to the semi-finals. We really should have paid more attention to the details of that battle. Think about it. Tao Pie Pie had been turned into a cyborg. None of us really paused to wonder HOW. We should have. We might have remembered that Tao had worked for the Red Ribbon Army and then maybe we wouldn't have needed anyone to warn us about the androids later.

I'm getting ahead of myself again, aren't I?

Back to the tournament. So we're down to the last four contenders: Tenshinhan, Goku, Kami and Piccolo.

Now Tenshinhan and Goku were the only ones who had fought Piccolo Daimio and survived, so they were the only ones to truly recognize Piccolo for what he was - the demon kings latest incarnation. I don't know about Goku but Tenshinhan made it clear that he would have liked to have rearranged Piccolos vital organs. Problem was, we were all still playing by the tournament rules.

Tenshinhan drew a match against Goku. This is another one of the fights that Chaozu had not picked, he was as surprised as the rest of us. We'd all thought that Tenshinhan would get his chance to fight Piccolo. But apparently Kami wanted to be Piccolos opponent. That right there should tell you something about evil-Namek-junior. That god would go to all the trouble of entering a tournament just to confront someone...

Thank...I dunno...probably Korin. Because Yajirobe was still at the tournament. He'd remained as a spectator and he realized what the tournament was building up to way before the rest of us. So Yajirobe started warning people, scaring them off. In addition to being a samurai, he's spent time as a monk. When he has to, Yajirobe can give a fire-and-brimstone speech that makes your skin crawl. You just want to run away. In fact, that's exactly what a lot of people did. And Chaozu and Master Roshi were in the audience too. Roshi knew hypnosis and Chaozu is telepathic so they silently put the two skills together and started making people leave.

All the warriors began to understand that large quantities of danger were pending.

I can't quite describe the feeling. All around me, people are abruptly getting up and leaving. Bulma, Puar, ChiChi and Lunch were fairly confused by that - they didn't understand why people would leave right before the best fights. Oolong - who has always been paranoid enough to know warning signs when he sees them - was hiding under his seat. Krillen and I... I think we both wanted to run away screaming when the realization hit us but we just couldn't. Our friends were down there and even if the apocalypse was suddenly very possible, we couldn't leave them. There wasn't any point in leaving. Where do you run to when you think the whole world is gonna be destroyed? It's not like you can escape.

Tenshin vs. Goku was a blur. I hardly remember the battle. My whole attention was caught in anticipating the next match. Kami was Earths guardian. Piccolo was basically the most evil thing on Earth. And I really had no idea who would win. That scared me to pieces.

For the record Goku won his battle against Tenshinhan this time and he won it way, way too easily. Two moves from Goku and the fight was over. Goku had even used one of Tenshins own attacks against him. Ow. It's not like Tenshinhan had the most stable self-esteem anyway but jeez... Lunch could have killed Goku then and there. Chaozu might have shared a similar line of thought if the situation hadn't been so dire.

Kami and Piccolo stepped into the ring and dropped their charade. Kami released the nerd whose body he'd been possessing and took his own form. Piccolo introduced himself. The fight started.

The worst feeling in the world is not dying, it's waiting to die. It's sitting there feeling helpless when you're convinced the world is gonna end in about ten minutes. It's your best friend sitting next to you with no clue of what's about to happen. It's wanting to tell everyone around you how much you care but suddenly your throat is dry and you can't find your voice. It's being 23 years old and full of regrets - I should have looked for my parents, I should have valued my friends more, I should have...

Kami used an attack that should have killed him. The mafuba attack. Kami was trying to seal Piccolo into a denshi jar. But this insanely strong attack... Failed. Piccolo stole the jar and swallowed it. Then the real fight began.

Can you even imagine what it's like to know that god is losing?

I think I forgot how to breathe. Guess I was a bit stressed out. So my memory gets a bit fuzzy right here. I don't know how the fight ended exactly. I just know that Piccolo won. Then... Out of nowhere... The tournament announcer finally spoke up. He reminded everyone that was still at the stadium that Kami vs. Piccolo had just been a semi-final. There was one fight left. Goku vs. Piccolo.

In a list of Gokus most difficult fights, the battle against Boss Rabbit will always be number one - just because of the circumstances - but the battle against Piccolo is in the top five. Yea, I know. Piccolo Daimio was a tough fight as well. But when Goku fought Daimio, he didn't know about Kami. See Kami is spirit bound to Piccolo - if one dies then the other dies too. Goku knew this now and that's what made the fight against Piccolo so hard. The world and the tournament were both at stake. But Goku didn't want to kill Kami. So he couldn't kill Piccolo.

Despite the fact that Goku was holding back his power for most of this battle, he and Piccolo trashed the stadium. The whole grand structure was turned into a smoldering ruin. Kinda reminded me of how Pilafs castle had looked after Goku had stomped it flat. Instead of sitting in the bleachers or standing on the sidelines, we were all hiding in a pit - taking cover and slightly amazed we weren't dead yet - by the end of this fight. Other spectators that had remained weren't as lucky, Piccolo murdered a lot of them. So kudos to Tenshin for creating the trench that saved our lives.

Kami was hiding out with us. When it seemed that Goku was losing - and knowing that Goku was losing was somehow worse than the knowledge that god had already lost - Kami asked Tenshinhan to kill him. That's how the rest of us learned about the spirit-bond.

It was good to know about the spirit-bond. Answered some questions. For anyone who was wondering how the evil twin, Daimo, could have survived in a tiny jar at the bottom of the ocean for more than two hundred years before escaping and trying to kill us all - the spirit-bond is the only sensible answer. Daimo had been kept alive by Kami being alive. The denshi jar and mafuba attack had been invented for that specific purpose: so that Daimo could be contained without harming Kami. The only reason that Daimo had died and Kami hadn't was because the bond was able to change. Daimo had used the last of his life energy to create an offspring - Piccolo Jr was born in the World Palace, the same place where Daimo was defeated - and inherited the bond. Kami was aware of this and explained that his death would cause Piccolos death as well. This should add new depth to the fact that Kami was willing to use the lethal mafuba attack - he'd basically attempted suicide there, knowing that he'd take Junior with him if successful. But the life bond that Kami had hoped would end the match had instead saved both of them when Piccolo had resisted the attack.

So now Kami was asking for outside help. But Tenshin wasn't in the mood to kill anyone.

Kami didn't ask anyone else. He could have but he didn't. That just struck me as kinda odd. Because if he'd really wanted to die then Kami could have asked someone who would have killed him. I truly think that Tenshin was the only one there who had the guts to say anything like: _Listen god, I'm not killing you. Not even if you ask nicely._ The rest of us, if Kami had ordered us to kill him... We would have. Krillen, Yajirobe, Chaozu, Roshi, ChiChi, Bulma, Lunch - even Puar and Oolong - if Kami had asked them to, they would have found a way to kill him. And I would have, too. I'd have regretted it. I'd have hated to do it. But I'd have done it. Because Kami wouldn't ask for death if he didn't have good reasons for wanting to be dead.

Or... Maybe Kami did have other reasons for asking for death. I didn't find this out until years later. Tenshinhan isn't often talkative but once in awhile, when frustrated, he can be persuaded to explain. He summed it up in this way: "Isn't it obvious? Kami was testing me. He wanted to see what I would do. Technically, I was still the official Champion of Earth - remember? The 23rd Budoukai was underway but it wasn't over yet. A new champion had not yet been declared. I had won the last tournament. So Kami didn't ask anyone else because he felt that the responsibility was mine, in particular. And I refused his request. Because I felt - knew - that my winning the last tournament had been a fluke and I didn't want to win that way again. And I could have. Didn't you notice? Goku was fighting Piccolo. The fate of the world might have been at stake but the fight was happening during the tournament and the tournament had rules. Killing an opponent was not allowed. Believe me, the tournaments would have been very different if killing an opponent had been allowed. For better or worse, it wasn't. So... If I had agreed to kill Kami then Piccolo would have also died and Goku would have been automatically disqualified. With Goku disqualified and Kami and Piccolo both dead... Do you remember who placed fourth at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai? Yes. Me. So the title would have fallen to me, again. Champion of Earth, again. And I wouldn't have earned it, again. I probably wouldn't have been able to keep the title for very long, either. Because if I had killed Kami then Goku and all the rest of you probably would have been seriously upset with me. Goku, at least. He had trained with Kami by then. They had respect for each other. How do YOU think Goku would have reacted to someone killing his most recent teacher? Having Kamis permission to kill him probably wouldn't have mattered. And I was aware of the dragonballs by then, as well. So I understood that if I killed Kami then the dragonballs wouldn't work anymore. My best friend is psychic. Chaozu, he'd glimpsed the future. He knew that we'd need for the dragonballs to remain in working order. He didn't tell me everything but he'd told me that much. I trust his predictions."

Hrm. Now that I think back on it... Competitive and skilled though Tenshinhan can be... His bad experiences at the 22nd and 23rd Budoukais are probably a large part of why he didn't participate in any of the tournaments that came after.

The second freakish thing to happen concerning Kami came once the match was finally over. After we had peeled Goku and Piccolo off the ground. We healed Goku right away. Then he gave a senzu bean to Piccolo. I coulda clubbed the kid - what was he thinking?! To heal a demon guy that didn't just want to take over the world but that had enough power to do so... Augh. ANYWAY. So after Goku is healthy again and Piccolo has flown away swearing to get revenge, Kami steps up and drops a bombshell on us. He wanted Goku to take over as Earths god. Kami didn't even ask if Goku wanted the job. He just sort of faced us all and implied that it was Gokus turn to guard the planet now - as if that was the most natural thing to say.

No, I'm not kidding.

You could have knocked me over with less than a feather. I'd always suspected...expected...whatever... But not so soon! Goku was 19! I mean, I know that's a stupid reason to say that he couldn't be a god or a legend but - I dunno. Would you want a 19 year old boy running your planet? And then Gokus response. He didn't even seem to realize that the offer - to even get an offer like that - is a monstrous compliment, a huge opportunity, a great honor. He basically said: "No way!" And he meant it. He turned it down. Goku thought the offer was an insult or a bad joke and he just flat out refused.

Read that carefully: Goku refused to become the god of Earth.

Now you know one of the major reasons ChiChi and Goku are such a successful couple. Not many other girls can say their husband turned down being god in order to get married. True, back then Goku believed that 'marriage' was a special type of food. So technically, he turned down the chance to be a god because of food. But still...

Krillen was spending this time trying to convince the tournament announcer that he wasn't a ghost. (The announcer had seen Krillen die at the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai.) Lunch was trying to convince Tenshinhan to retire from fighting. ChiChi was making wedding plans already and the rest of us were just in shock.

From now on you may assume that basically any time we're around Goku at all, we're in shock.

**ooxoo**


	12. And a wedding

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 12: And a wedding**

**U**hm...the wedding... There were some complications involving a certain flaming mountain, Ox King and the wedding dress - but of course Goku sorted all that out with ease.

Guess I need to explain. The traditional wedding ceremony in our world might be a bit different from yours. Marriages here are usually held either at a shrine or outdoors. Weddings held indoors are generally considered unlucky. The reason for this is an old superstition which says that if the couple really loves each other then they shouldn't have to hide it or try to contain their all good energy within a building. Shrines are considered to be 'outdoors' since they are usually located in nature and have a lot of large windows or maybe even an open wall. Also, shrines are considered holy places. So at least in most of our cultures an indoors wedding is seen to mean: "we might sort of love each other - or maybe this marriage was arranged for reasons that have nothing to do with love - but we don't want anyone else to know that." An outdoor wedding is symbolic of: "we have enough love to fill the world and we want everyone to know." And a wedding in a shrine is basically interpreted as: "match made in Heaven, living on Earth."

What kind of stories do the people in your world tell, by the locations that they choose for their special occasions?

Goku and ChiChi were married in a shrine.

At the wedding ceremony... To start with the couple - bride and groom - each wear a traditional kimono. Heh. Goku wasn't thrilled about that part: "I have to wear a DRESS?" The couple is purified and blessed by a priest and then the couple drinks sake. Sake is rice wine. For weddings the sake is always very mild because it would be impolite to get drunk at such a special bride and groom then exchange vows, a kiss and sometimes they exchange rings. They finish the formal ceremony by asking for Kamis blessing. Which is kind of a weird thing to do when Kami is in the same room.

The gathering for the actual wedding is very small. Family and best friends only. Everyone else has to wait until the reception to see the married couple. Bulma and I had the honor of being part of the small crowd in the shrine for the ceremony. Krillen was there as the assistant priest, Yajirobe was the senior priest (he'd done weddings before), Kami was there and Ox King was there. Goku was the groom, ChiChi was the bride and that was it. Everyone else waited for us at the reception.

And when I say everyone else - this was no small reception. There were well over a thousand people total. The guests included Tenshinhan, Lunch, Chaozu, Puar, Oolong, Master Roshi, Uranai Baba, Umigame, Korin, Mister Popo, Mrs. Briefs, Dr. Briefs, half of Capsule Corps employees, anyone that had been to a Tenkaichi Budoukai in the last nine years, a whole bunch of random people that Goku had crossed paths with at some point and a few dozen reporters that had heard of Goku by now. It was... Very strange but kind of neat. Because members of ChiChis extended family were there and distant relatives of Gokus adoptive grandfather, Gohan, were there. And of course, another warning about our collective futures was there, mixed in with other guests. His name was Android 8. If only we'd had a chance to speak to him but... A wedding just didn't seem like the right occasion to be bringing up the subject of the Red Ribbon Army.

This is when I discovered I have a fear of public speaking. At a wedding reception it's a custom for everyone to sit down to a meal and during the meal - especially between the different courses of the meal - all the close friends of the bride and/or groom are expected to make a speech or dedicate a song to the couple or something like that. I didn't know more than a few people at that reception, the rest were a bunch of strangers that I'd never see or hear from again. So my shyness returned. Thankfully, I got away with letting Bulma do most of the talking.

Speaking of Bulma... One more thing about the wedding ceremony - the bride and the groom each change clothes more than once for the reception. So Goku did end up in a tuxedo eventually and that's when Bulma made the remark that I'd probably look good in a tuxedo. Ack.

Uh, no - I hadn't worn a tuxedo to the wedding. I was in my tribal outfit since that was the most formal clothing I owned back then. The idea of getting married... I just hadn't expected to hear it applied to me. I didn't think that Bulma loved me that much. Heck, I was under the impression that she didn't really love me at all. So... Marriage. Ack. Yea. How did that idea sneak up on me? It was one of those days again. You know, I've had a lot of 'those days' since I met Goku. Eesh.

At the end of the reception Goku and ChiChi - mostly ChiChi - made a speech to thank everyone before departing. When Goku had been a little kid, he'd lived in isolation. Since he hadn't been around people much, he'd sometimes had trouble telling the difference between boys and girls. It was a character quirk that he kept until he was married. Then he never had that problem again.

Everyone split after the wedding. ChiChi and Goku went to their new house that was isolated out in the wilderness someplace. Tenshin, Lunch and Chaozu went back to the mountain wilderness where they lived. Yajirobe and Korin went back to Korins Tower. Kami and Mister Popo went back to Kamis Lookout. Roshi, Umigame and Krillen went back to Kame Island. Ox King went back to his castle. Uranai Baba went back to her desert oasis. Bulma and her parents went back to Capsule Corp. Puar and I went back to the desert hideout. I don't know where Oolong went.

I could have gone back to Capsule Corp if I'd wanted to. I didn't want to. It was all Bulmas fault. Early in our turbulent relationship, she'd always said that she deserved someone better. She'd said it so often that I believed her now. I regarded her as a friend, nothing more. Bulma had spent the vast majority of the last seven years convincing me that we didn't have a shot at anything beyond mild friendship. We weren't even a couple as far as I knew. That's why the marriage hint really threw me.

So I went into my I-need-my-own-space-because-you've-confused-the-hell-out-of-me mode. Hey, we're all allowed to have our moods, right?

The next couple years were absolutely surreal. It was almost like being 16 again, like none of that stuff with Pilaf and Piccolo Daimio had even happened. As if I'd never met Goku. Just me and Puar, back in the desert hideout. No phone, no computer. Not even a mailbox. So we fell out of touch with everyone for a while.

But there was still the radio. And I started tuning in sports stations more often. Baseball games in particular.

Lets face it. I don't adapt very well. I'd spent most of the last seven years of my life living at either Capsule Corp or the Kame House. So I had gotten accustomed to 'home' having more than one room and other such luxuries. I didn't care to be a desert bandit again, not when I knew that I could do better.

This is when I officially picked up a new ambition in life. It was a brilliant plan and very simple. I knew that I was never, ever going to be stronger than Goku - but there was no reason that I couldn't become more famous than he was.

We all had to do it, you know. We all had to beat Goku at _something_. Otherwise, what would Goku need us for? If he could do everything then we were useless to him and nobody wants to be useless, especially not to a friend. So we all beat Goku somehow - whether by being a better cook than he was or richer or more psychic or whatever - we all beat him in our own little ways. Heh. Guess you could say that Goku basically made all of us better people. It's true. Just by being himself, he motivated every single one of us to find our talents and excel.

I found two talents: sword fighting and baseball.

But this is kinda long already, isn't it? So I'll stop for now. I should anyway. The next part it's...well... Like I said, I don't adapt real well and a major change was coming up in my life. Scars. A touchy subject with me but...eh. Now you know why I'm a baseball celebrity and not a famous sword master. Yea. Ow. Uhm. That story is a bit complicated though so I'll fill you in on the details next time, if I'm up to it.

**ooxoo**


	13. Scars

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 13: Scars**

**W**ell, I'm back. Might as well get this part over with.

After the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai, Goku and ChiChi were married. And after the wedding, the group split up. Most everyone went their own ways for about five years. Puar and I returned to the desert hideout, so we really didn't hear from anyone much during this time. But after talking with everyone else, I have a fair idea of what they spent those five years doing.

Goku and ChiChi spent those years adapting to their new life together. Being married was a huge change for each of them - because they'd both grown up in relative isolation. Goku cut back on his training considerably which had to be fairly hard on him because he was so used to fighting every day. However since ChiChi had given up fighting for the sake of marriage, Goku was convinced that he had to at least try to make the same commitment. They moved into a house that had been a wedding present from ChiChis father, Ox King. It's a nice house on a good piece of land but when the couple first moved in, the house needed some work. No one had lived there for a couple of decades.

Remember how at age 13 Goku had been given the mission to walk around the world? And pause for a moment to think about all the other adventures Goku'd had that required extensive traveling. In truth, Goku hadn't really had a home since he was 12. He was 19 when he got married. It was probably a bit of a challenge for him just to get used to living in the same place all the time instead of wandering around like a nomad. Meanwhile, ChiChi faced her own set of challenges adapting. She had been raised in a castle. The house seemed small to her.

And as if marriage and settling down and owning a house weren't enough to adapt to... Roughly a year after their marriage, Goku and ChiChi became parents. They had a son - Gohan and yes, he IS named after his adoptive ancestor - but for reasons unknown, they didn't happen to mention this event to anyone beyond Ox King, who was delighted to be a grandparent.

Tenshinhan and Chaozu spent a lot of time training. For better or worse, participating in the last two Budoukais had sort of advertised their presence to the world. So they expected various rivals, enemies and former colleagues - including their former sensei, the Crane Master - to eventually track them down and try to kill them. Again.

One of the problems with being a professional assassin is that you frequently have access to rather a lot of dangerous people and sensitive information. This isn't a job you can just stop doing one day. Typically, the only way to quit or retire from being an assassin is to die. Because there are people out there - gang leaders, crime bosses and so forth - that don't want to risk having their secrets become public knowledge. If you are willing to stop being an assassin... Then what's to keep you from changing sides completely? People got scared. Tenshinhans enemies in particular, I imagine, were terrified that he might turn around and become a government agent. Although Chaozu would have been a heck of an addition as well. Imagine a police officer that can fly, use energy blasts AND read minds. Thieves wouldn't stand a chance.

They must have been successful in dealing with their enemies. After all, they're still alive - which is quite an accomplishment. The average lifespan for an active assassin is less than thirty years and the lifespan of a former assassin is generally measured in hours, if not minutes. So they've both beaten the odds. Plus we never heard from the Crane Master again. I _did_ hear that Tenshinhan might have also crossed paths with Piccolo Junior a few times. Perhaps these encounters were one of the main reasons that Piccolo didn't try to take over the world during those five years.

Lunch left Kame Island once and for all. I don't know where she lived during these five years - I guess she moved a lot - but every time I heard about her, she had a different job. Lunch went through more jobs than even she could keep track of. She was doing great for a while and seemed on the verge of having her anger-invoked schizophrenia under control. But in the end she always lost her temper and that usually got her fired. It's kind of sad. Lunch worked very hard, she really was trying to do well. I don't think people realize how difficult it must have been for her. I mean, to have a permanent genetic illness with no cure... A lot of people would just give up and let themselves be put in an asylum. Lunch didn't. I just admire that, I think most of us do and I sometimes wonder if Lunch will ever truly realize what an inspiration she's been to the rest of us.

In order to be a true martial arts sensei, you have to defeat one. At first Krillen spent a lot of his time training at Kame Island. He had been gearing up to challenge Master Roshi. For a while, Krillen planned to achieve the title of Kamesennin. He wanted to become the next Turtle Master. Or at least, that's what he said. But he wasn't very convincing.

Have any of you ever looked for a job? Have you ever come across an advertisement for a job that you easily _could_ do but that, deep down, you don't actually _want_ to do? If you've said yes to both of these questions then perhaps you can understand how Krillen felt back then. He was indecisive about being a sensei. That's why he never went beyond training. If he'd really wanted to become a martial arts sensei then he would have found a way. He could have challenged and defeated Master Roshi. Or he could have left Kame Island, created his own style and started his own dojo. Krillen was capable of these things. He even claimed to want them. But actions speak louder than words sometimes and as far as becoming a martial arts sensei goes, Krillen never went much beyond words.

Krillen was age 20. He had spent most of the wedding ceremony at the grooms side, reminding Goku of what to say. However there had been some awkward moments when Goku hadn't gotten any cues because Krillen was kinda staring into space with the serene expression of someone who is daydreaming. More than once - before, after and during the ceremony - Krillen had made subtle remarks which made it clear that he'd expected to be married before Goku and that he envied Goku for having all the luck. So to those of us knew him, it was painfully obvious that Krillen was interested in having a family life of his own.

Master Roshi and Oolong report that Krillen did actually leave Kame Island for a couple years. We still don't know what exactly happened because Krillen refuses to talk about it. We think he might have either had a relationship that turned sour or perhaps he tracked down his relatives - but those are just educated guesses. At any rate... Krillen ended up back at the Kame House where he resumed training, became Umigames best friend and basically took care of the place.

One of the things that Krillen discovered while training was how easy it is to change the color and shape of an energy blast. With a bit of practice, he began using ki to make fireworks. Goku, Tenshinhan and Chaozu all conducted their own experiments and reached these same conclusions separately. But I learned to make fireworks from Krillen. Together, Krillen and I figured out how to create an energy blast that could still be controlled _after_ it was fired and that generated some of our most impressive fireworks. The discovery also had a LOT of practical battle applications. We each began to use controlled ki blasts more often in our training.

Master Roshi was intrigued but he didn't give up retirement. He passed the days by reading magazines, sun bathing, watching television, hanging out with Oolong and pulling pranks on Umigame. Roshi did train a little, early on, but only because he'd been expecting Krillen to challenge him.

Oolong visited the Kame House more frequently. He took the money he'd gotten from selling his mansion out of the bank and made some good investments. He bought and sold land for a while. At some point, Oolong tried to buy Kame Island. He failed. Uranai Baba and Master Roshi share the rights to the island and neither of them were interested in selling. So Oolong went back to real estate for a while. But slowly... And stubbornly.. And I'm not sure how he managed this, although I'd bet that he had to bribe and blackmail a few hundred government officials... Oolong bought all the water rights to Kame Island. Essentially, Oolong bought a rather large piece of the southern ocean.

To celebrate his achievement, Oolong became a permanent resident of the Kame House. Master Roshi welcomed him. Uranai Baba tolerated him. And several random people from various coastal places immediately filed lawsuits against Oolong because they wanted to try to hold him responsible for the shark attacks and tidal waves that occurred on his new property. Oolong has enjoyed humiliating these people. So has Master Roshi.

Due to some of Master Roshis habits, most of us would rather not socialize with him. No disrespect is intended here. Without question, Roshi is an excellent martial arts sensei but... He is also over 300 years old.

Uhm. To the people reading this, it might sometimes seem as if I'm kinda obsessed with keeping track of everyones age. Well... Guess I'd have to plead guilty on that. When you don't have parents, you notice parenting stuff more. When you don't know your own birthday then you try not to forget anyone elses. That's where I'm coming from. But that's not the only reason. Time passes quickly. Sometimes I can hardly believe how long I've known some of these people. Trying to keep track of their ages helps to remind me. And... Well. Yeah. Age is just one of those things. You probably don't think about it much but when you do... Age really does define us, in some ways. It's not just part of how we organize our memories. Age affects how you relate to others. Are they older than you or younger than you? Do they look their age? Do they act their age? What do you expect from them? What do you think they expect from you? Stuff like that. You can tell a lot about a person by how much a situation ages them. Right? Well. We think we can. But it's tricky. Because, as I've mentioned before, Puar is a shapeshifter. She is also a cat. An average cat does not age at the same rate that an average human might - and Puar is not average. So keep this in mind. Our world - we have animals and aliens and androids. We have immortals and magicians and legendary martial artists. They don't all age at the same rate. Especially with factors like reincarnation and traveling in space and training in places that distort time... Some of my friends started out younger than me. Now I'm pretty sure that they're older than I am. Has that ever happened to you? It's kinda weird. So yeah I try to keep track of ages for all those reasons and also just because... Well. Just because. It's sort of an interesting subject to me.

So... Master Roshi is over 300 years old. When you're over 300 years old, the rules and morals of normal society probably just seem petty. Which is why Master Roshi more or less ignores all of them. Try to understand. Master Roshi is older than the five major cities in our world. He has seen generations of kings and kingdoms come and go - literally. He can remember a time when the World Empire, our current authority, didn't exist. He's more than triple the age of most modern laws and so he feels that the laws don't apply to him. And being over 300 years old... Most of his peers have been dead for a very long time. So there is no real peer pressure for him. As far as I can tell, there are only three kinds of rules on Earth that Master Roshi respects. 1)The rules of the Tenkaichi Budoukai. 2)Any rule that Uranai Baba makes. 3)Any rule that Korin makes.

We couldn't relate to Roshi. How could any of us relate to someone that was over 300 years old? Puar, Krillen, Goku, ChiChi, Chaozu, Tenshinhan, Lunch, Bulma and I - the eldest among us was 25. So we all kinda avoided Roshi. We shunned him. I don't know if it was completely intentional from everyone - we did all have our own lives to keep us busy - but I doubt that any of us actually spent much time with Roshi. Because we were embarrassed to be seen in public with him. He was loud and rude and in the habit of breaking laws.

Oolong is the exception. He and Roshi became close friends. Sometimes they would go into town where they'd have a blast just sitting around, watching people and making comments. Eesh.

I do sort of regret this, believe it or not. Because no matter how annoying Roshi could be when turned loose in a public place, he deserved our respect. He'd done a heck of a lot for all of us. Roshi was always ready to be serious and heroic when needed - he'd proven that more than once. He'd provided us with training and had opened his home to us. He hadn't asked for much in return. Just that we pay attention when he was training us and that we let him be himself when he wasn't training us.

I have other, similar regrets. I regret not visiting everyone during these five years. I regret not getting to know people better. Goku, Krillen... Sometimes it is hard to think of them as friends since I feel as if there should be more depth to friendship. As if I should know more about these people that I consider friends. As I write this, Goku has saved the world at least a dozen times. Yet I still don't know when exactly he celebrates his birthday - or if he celebrates it at all. Krillen has saved my life more than once but I don't even know if he has a middle name.

Anyway. Back to the story. Bulma went to college and started to work part time at Capsule Corp during those five years. She kept busy. So busy that she never even thought about picking up her dragonball radar and going off in search of the dragonballs again.

That leaves Puar, Yajirobe and I.

Yajirobe is a few years older than me and he's been a samurai most of his life. So when I decided that I wanted to become a famous swords master, the first thing I did was go back to Korins Tower.

Baseball was merely an idea for me at this point. I still regarded baseball as a childs game, too easy. Besides I hadn't ever played the game so I was fairly certain the baseball officials wouldn't hire me. The whole 'famous sword master' role - that just seemed more honorable. More respectable. More challenging. More believable. I was 24, almost 25 and I had been sword fighting since I was age 9. So I thought that I had a shot at this.

Yajirobe agreed. He thought that I had a shot at being a famous swords master too. He told me that the best way to test my skills would be to enter the Kenshiai. The Tournament of Swords. As to Yajirobe himself - at that time, he was working on becoming Korins best student. Yajirobes ambition was to defeat Korin and become the next Cat Master.

I should pause to explain the titles. See there are many different styles of martial arts and most, but not all, of these styles are named after animals. The name of the fighting style is usually meant to reflect what the training emphasis is on. Korin was the Cat Master. Not just because Korin was a cat but because his fighting style focused on stealth. Master Roshi, the Turtle Master, has a style that revolves around strength and endurance. The Crane Master had a style that concentrated on agility and strategy - plus he could fly and most of his students could at least hover. My very first martial arts sensei, the Hinodejin indian, he was sometimes called the Wolf Master because his fighting style focused on speed, balance and intimidating the opponent.

So anyway. Yajirobe was caught up doing a lot of stealth training. He didn't think he'd make it to the next Kenshiai but he told me how to find the event. He also made me promise to sign up as a beginner rather than as an advanced swordsman. I resented this but Yajirobe said that I'd understand after I'd seen how the tournament worked.

When Yajirobe is right, he's right.

The Kenshiai has two main categories. You can enter the tournament as a beginner or as an advanced swordsman. Either you have the knack or you don't, there's no inbetween. There were a different set of rules for each category and the main difference was that the advanced swordsmen were allowed to kill their opponents. Understand that most of the advanced fighters at this tournament were samurai, imperial guards or mercenaries. Dead serious types of people whose lives, honor and income depended on their reputation. So these people would literally rather die than lose a match because losing was dishonorable and hurt their ability to get work.

But now you know why the Kenshiai wasn't as popular as the Tenkaichi Budoukai. Death does not sell. The Tournament of Swords could never get corporate sponsors. The Kenshiai officials weren't allowed to do much advertising, they had trouble keeping an audience and every year they lost more tournament contenders.

Going to the Kenshiai was the single biggest mistake of my life.

They'd heard of me. The Kenshiai officials had heard of me, that was the real shock. These complete strangers knew me. They'd seen my matches at the last four Tenkaichi Budoukais and even though I'd lost every single time, I'd always made it as far as the semi-finals before I was eliminated. I didn't think my record at other tournaments was a big deal - but they did. In their eyes, I was a famous celebrity. The perfect spokesperson. The Kenshiai officials wanted to use me to promote this bloody deathmatch of theirs, to draw a crowd so they could make some money off the tournament for once. I told them they were insane. And I meant it. For more than one reason. First - and most obvious - I didn't want to promote anything so blatantly dishonorable. Second - and fairly obvious - was that even if I did the commercial, which I didn't, why should it work? I'd never won a tournament. Who was going to listen to me? Who would be the target audience? Warriors? Teenagers? Ha! These Kenshiai officials had to be out of their minds.

I should have listened to Puar. I should have walked out of the Kenshiai then and there. But I didn't. My ambition was to become a great sword master. I couldn't afford to turn down the opportunity to duel with some of the better sword fighters on the planet. So I stayed. I signed up for the Kenshiai as a beginner. I figured that once the fighting started, the tournament officials would back off. And if I was ranked as a beginner - they'd have to come to their senses. They'd have to see that I wasn't the celebrity they imagined me to be.

Puar and I watched a few matches while waiting for my name to be called. We watched the other 'beginners'. They'd all obviously been dueling for years but, like me, these warriors didn't see any point in killing each other over a tournament prize. That was encouraging. What was worrisome was that my name hadn't been called. There came a point when I knew that my name SHOULD have been called by then because all the other beginners had already been in at least one match. I went to the office to see what the deal was. A tournament referee told me that there had been an uneven number of beginners entering the tournament, so I had been bumped into the advanced category and I should be honored.

Yea, right. These people wanted me to die from blood loss and I should be honored. Sure. Whatever.

I left. Well, I tried to leave but this samurai with a severe attitude problem got in my way. The guy was another one of those people who'd seen me at the Tenkaichi Budoukais. And he hated my guts. For some reason this guy thought that if I was at the Kenshiai then Goku and the others would eventually come to take over this tournament as well, to deprive 'normal' people of a fair chance to win.

Can someone please tell me when I stopped being normal? I know I'm stronger than most people but being stronger doesn't make a person abnormal. It's not like I had stopped needing to eat or breathe or anything else. It's not as if I'd stopped being human. Sorry to rant but the way people seemed to think that suddenly I wasn't normal - it's just something that kinda got on my nerves.

Anyway. I tried to walk past him. The last thing I wanted to do was fight. The arrogant samurai, the Kenshiai officials - they wanted me to fight, they were trying to get me to fight and I knew that if I fought then I would be doing just exactly what they wanted. So I ignored them as best as I could and just tried to leave.

Then the samurai grabbed Puar by her tail and made some sort of grotesque remark about cat meat being good for shiskabob. He was unconscious the next time I saw straight.

When I am truly and seriously ticked off, I don't remember anything else. Not what I did or how I did it - the world just blanks out for a little bit when my temper flares. It's sort of freaky, actually. I wonder if one of my parents was like that. Maybe that's where I got it from. I dunno. But I was a little bit shaken after knocking this guy out. I was half afraid that I'd killed him.

You know, I can admit that I enjoyed fighting a lot more before I'd met Goku. I never had to worry about accidentally killing people before I met Goku.

Puar was all right but seriously scared - of me as much as anyone else. That was painful, to see my own best friend afraid of me. I knew right then that I'd never make it as famous sword master or any other kind of fighter because if I had to choose between fighting and having a best friend... Having a friend wins every single time.

I was apologizing to Puar for frightening her so badly when some other fighters came to check on the unconscious samurai. Apparently he was a friend of theirs and they were honor-bound to defend their friends.

The next thing I knew, there were all these sword blades pointed at me. So I really didn't have much choice in the matter. If I hadn't fought back then the swordsmen would have just killed me outright. By choosing to fight I prompted them to give me fair odds, it was a one-on-one match and a duel to the death. At least, that's how it started. I held my own so well that a few of the other swordsmen decided to join in. They were determined to kill me, that's all there is to it.

I remember getting tired, the world going hazy. And I remember hoping that Puar had gotten out of there. The rest - I don't remember much about it. Just that there were swords everywhere and I knew that I couldn't defend myself against all of them at once. I kinda remember seeing blood on some of the swords too... I hadn't even felt the blades but I knew the blood was mine... Eventually I blacked out and dropped my sword. I haven't seen my sword since then. Good riddance, I guess.

My opponents left me for dead.

I would have been too, except that Puar did get away and she went to a public phone to call me an ambulance. I vaguely recall being lifted off the pavement but not much else. I know that I had some pretty funky nightmares while I was half conscious but thankfully I don't remember any of those.

The first thing I do remember clearly after this is pain. Lots of it. Absolutely everything ached. Every single scratch and bruise and break - ow. It was sheer agony. I felt as if I'd been run over a few times by an army tank and then a marching band wearing cleats had stomped on me for good measure. I knew immediately that I was in a hospital because I was alive. Also since I could feel all the stuff they had hooked me up to. There were a whole bunch of IVs in my arm, tubes and wires around my chest and an oxygen mask over my face. Is it just me or do oxygen masks only help people who are unconscious breathe? I know that when I was awake, that thing did not make breathing easier.

The second thing that really hit me was thirst. I guess it's normal for people who've lost a lot of blood to be dying of thirst when they regain consciousness.

The last thing that caught my attention when I regained consciousness was fear because right then I realized that I couldn't see anything.

All of that happened within about ten seconds of me waking up. Let me just say that fear is a great painkiller. I was so terrified by the prospect of being blind that I completely ignored all the pain I was in and tried to get up. I don't know why but at the time I'd thought that maybe getting up would prompt my vision to return.

As Puar and a few nurses explained to me - while picking me up off the floor - my face was bandaged to the point where I couldn't open my eyes. That's why I couldn't see anything. This news wasn't much of a comfort to me since nobody could tell me that I wasn't blind. I'd taken a slash across the face, you have no idea how badly it irritates me that I don't remember getting that, and my left eye was damaged from the hit. So there was a real chance that I'd be half blind. Or worse.

The doctor must have given me some kind of sedative to calm me down because things blank out again right here. I was a bit groggy the next time I woke up. I didn't try to move, I just stayed put and talked to Puar. I learned a few important things from the conversation.

For one thing, I found out that I had acquired a last name. The hospital staff had asked for a last name on some of their paperwork so Puar had given me hers.

Puars full name is... Well, it's huge. She has her family name, the name of her homeland, a couple different middle names and her first name. Her full name translates out to include stuff like 'fifth child of the third litter'. So when Puar said that she'd lent me her last name, I wasn't actually sure which one she was talking about. At first I thought she meant Hoshi which means _star_ but I guess that is one of Puars middle names. Her actual last name - her family name - was Tombo which means _dragonfly_ and that's the last name I now had.

Tombo Yamucha. I kept the last name for the sake of paperwork but I never got used to people calling me Tombo-san. (Mr. Dragonfly) While it was a nice gesture on Puars behalf, it is still kind of bizarre for me to think of myself as having been adopted by a giant family of shapeshifting cats.

Then I made a second discovery. Puar wasn't in her cat form. She went to hold my hand and when she did, she had a hand - not a paw. She confessed that she'd had to take on a human shape because the hospital was a no-cats-allowed kind of place. Puar further explained that in order to legally have some say in my medical treatment, she had told the doctors she was related to me. She had claimed to be my little sister. That's why I'd gotten her last name. Anyone who thought Puars intentions were more romantic - please remember that Puar is about seven years younger than me okay? I was 24 when this happened. Puar was 17. So we're great friends but it's never gonna be a romantic thing and I really wouldn't want it to be. Romance has this weird way of ruining friendship.

I asked how long I'd been out. Puar kept changing the subject but finally she told me that I'd been unconscious for just over a week. Ow. Not just the regular painful ow either but... I wasn't rich yet. Hospitals are expensive. I knew there was no way I could pay the medical bills. So it was sort of a trap. I wasn't well enough to leave but I couldn't afford to stay.

Yeah, most of my friends were rich by this time. But there was no way that I wanted to ask anyone for money because I knew that I wouldn't be able to pay them back. Not soon, anyway. Besides, I really didn't feel like trying to explain how I'd ended up in the hospital.

Then something weird happened to take my mind off the medical bills for a bit. I sensed Puars ki. That was odd for me because I hadn't been able to detect other creatures energy signatures so easily before. But... Puar didn't always stay in her human shape. I knew that because I could see her energy change with her form. When nobody was looking, she'd flick back into her cat form and rest - usually curled up on my chest or by my face. I guess most cats are like this, they have to be the center of attention even when they sleep. Oi... Cute though.

So what's the big deal about sensing Puars ki? Not much except that Puar has been able to fly for as long as I've known her. When I saw her ki - when she was in cat form, of course - it's hard to explain but suddenly I understood how she did it, how she flew. And I knew that if I recovered with my sight, I'd be able to fly.

The moment of truth came. The doctor took off the bandages around my face and for the longest time, I didn't want to open my eyes. I eventually did though. The world was kind of blurry but to my great relief, it was there. I could still see. The first thing that came into clear focus was this little girl with her blue-grey hair done up in pigtails. Puar. It took me a minute to recognize her human form, during which time she nearly choked me with one of her bear hugs. The doctor said I should stay at the hospital a few more days to recover completely. I told him I couldn't afford it and he said not to worry about money because the bill had already been paid. Puar and I were both surprised to hear this news. The doctor gave me an envelope, told me to rest and left.

Inside the envelope was a scrap of paper with one sentence scrawled on it: _You'd better stick around kid, the future might just need you. -MB._

Enter the richest woman in the world.

Bet you're expecting me to say Bulma, aren't you? That was my first thought too. I thought 'MB' was either Mrs. Briefs(Bulmas Mom) or Miss Briefs(Bulma) - but no. Neither of them knew that I was in the hospital. And believe it or not, Bulma isn't the richest woman in the world. Bulma and her family are definitely in the top ten but Capsule Corp IS a business. And like most companies, Capsule Corp does have business expenses. Employees, marketing, research, all that. So the money that the Briefs make isn't pure profit.

The richest woman in the world has a nine digit income for half a day of work and most of that money is pure profit. You're never gonna believe this but it's true. Madame Uranai Baba. Master Roshis elder sister, the fortune teller. She signs her name MB, 'Madame Baba', for short. She is close to five hundred years older than me - that makes her one of the few people on Earth older than Kami - and she is so skilled, so well reputed at her work that she can get away with charging customers a hundred million zeni per reading.

A hundred million. Per reading. So if she only did one reading in a month she then could still buy around a tenth of the planet on a whim. The insane thing about Uranai Baba is that she does keep reasonably busy and as a result, she's easily a multi-trillionaire. Guess she puts the money to good use as well. She takes care of Roshis expenses because he's family, she's got her own school for psychic types and she gives a lot of money to charities.

Paying my medical bill was nothing to Uranai Baba. Granted, it was incredibly thoughtful of her but she makes more money in ten minutes than most people will ever see in their lifetimes. My hospital bill shouldn't have been more than five digits and to Uranai Baba, that's just pocket change.

Interesting observation: Uranai Baba also helped pay for Goku and ChiChis wedding reception. I think she would have paid for everything if Ox King hadn't insisted on splitting the bill. Anyway. At the time, Uranai Baba had claimed that she wanted to pay for the reception because she had an interest in her brothers students. So I figured that maybe this strange old lady that I didn't really know had decided to help me out simply because I was one of Master Roshis students. But the note... Uranai Baba, the worlds richest person and most accurate psychic, had written that the future _might just need _me. She hadn't said what exactly the future might need me for. While it was great to have the medical bills taken care of, I suddenly had this sinking feeling.

I didn't rest very well.

On the day that I decided to leave the hospital, a package arrived for me. It was from MB again and it contained a clean set of clothes. My fighting gi, to be precise. The orange one with the Kame mark and everything, just like the one that I'd worn at the last Tenkaichi Budoukai. I guess all of Roshis students get an orange fighting gi at some point. Half my closet is orange fighting gis now...

I got changed, cleaned up and finally caught sight of myself in a mirror. That was the first time I noticed the scars.

Two dark red gashes across my face. One slashed diagonally across the left side of my face and passed over my left eye in a thin line. The other was a cross shape on my right cheek. Nobody had told me about them and I couldn't feel them very much thanks to all the painkillers that were still in my system. So I stared at my reflection in disbelief for a while.

But I didn't actually let the scars bug me much. Not at first. I figured that a trip to Korins Tower for a senzu bean was all that it would take to heal the scars, to get rid of them. So Puar and I set out for Korins Tower. We flew - slowly until I got the hang of it better.

The tricky thing about flying is that you have to keep your energy concentrated around you in a very specific way. If you lose your concentration then you start to fall. At the same time flying is a bit like breathing in that if you think about it too much then you throw yourself off. All things considered, it's a small miracle that I didn't end up back in the hospital.

**ooxoo**


	14. Baseball and other life changes

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 14: Baseball and other life changes**

**W**e made it to Korins Tower after a few days. Yajirobe met us halfway up the tower and Puar attacked him. That was kind of odd to watch. One shapeshifting furball with claws versus a confused samurai. Thankfully I got between them before anyone was hurt - I didn't want anyone to fall off Korins Tower. Puar was still mad though. She was all puffed out with her fur on end. She blamed Yajirobe for everything that had happened to me since Yajirobe was the one who'd told me about the Tournament of the Swords in the first place.

Yajirobe wasn't as baffled by Puars behavior after he saw me. One look at the scars and he didn't bother to ask how the Kenshiai went. He escorted us to the top of the tower and brought out the senzu beans. I took one.

Nothing happened. Well, no, that's not true. After I ate the senzu, I didn't feel exhausted from climbing the tower anymore and I wasn't in as much pain either. Plus all the lingering bruises and little cuts I had, those healed. But the scars on my face, those didn't heal.

Korin himself came out and said more than "hrmmm" for once. He studied my scars, went away, came back and dumped some water over my head. That stung so badly that I almost fainted, the water felt as if it were burning the scars right off my face. Korin gave me a washcloth so I could end the pain. He then explained that he'd thrown holy water at me and that my reaction was an indication that I'd been cut by a cursed blade.

Senzu beans can't heal wounds caused by cursed weapons. The scars were staying.

At this point Yajirobe almost beat me up because he thought that I'd deliberately entered the Kenshiai as an advanced sword fighter even after he'd warned me not to. This lead to another Yajirobe verses Puar dispute. In all fairness I think Yajirobe would have flat out creamed Puar if I hadn't been sitting right there. As it was, he just batted her away most of the time. He didn't even draw his sword until Puar shapeshifted into a chainsaw.

I told them to quit it or I'd beat them both up. That stopped them for about ten seconds. Then they both attacked me. Korin watched for minute before he also joined in. It wasn't completely serious fighting. I had sounded depressed - because I was, tada - so they wanted to get my mind off everything that was bringing me down. For the most part, it worked. By the end of the fight we were all a mess, laughing though and feeling better for having vented.

But of course that didn't change much else, the scars were still there.

Humans, we're all a little bit vain. We all worry about our looks, we all wonder how other people view us. I could practically feel my opportunities get up and leave that day. I mean what kind of person was gonna hire me now that I had scars? I didn't think anyone would. Having scars, especially facial scars, it's a bit like having the words _here's the proof that I made a stupid mistake_ tattooed across your forehead. That's how I thought other people would view me now - as some sort of klutz. Or worse. Perhaps they'd assume I was a criminal or troublemaker. Or maybe they'd decide that I had a terminal disease.

Yea. Not exactly healthy concepts for the self-esteem.

I have never really gotten used to the scars. I tolerate them better now but there are days when I still resent them. I could live without the visible reminders that I'm not invincible and that life isn't fair. Suppose I shouldn't complain though, it could have been a lot worse.

Back on track then. Puar and I stayed at Korins Tower for a while. I was trying to pick out a new ambition in life since I was convinced that I wasn't ever going to be famous, not with the scars. I looked awful. And I didn't want to go back to the desert hideout for once because I was kinda afraid that if I did go back then I'd wind up being a desert bandit for the rest of my life. I still wanted to try to do better than that.

Yajirobe suggested that I become a martial arts teacher. I told him I was sick of fighting. Puar told me I could be an archeologist but I'm not sure if she was kidding.

And Korin, he was over eight hundred years old. Think about that for a minute. Wouldn't it be sad - really incredibly sad - if someone could live for a whole eight hundred years without making any friends? I think it would be. That's why I'm always puzzled that people seem to think that Korin - and Kami, Master Roshi, Uranai Baba - all these characters that have been around a while, why do people think they're useless? They have so many connections. Korin mentioned one day that if I truly wanted a job, all I had to do was name the career. I half jokingly said that baseball looked easy. Korin dragged me to the nearest baseball office the next morning. Casual as anything Korin, Puar, Yajirobe and I walked right into the place as if we belonged there. Nobody tried to tell us otherwise.

Korins Tower is located in the western desert. So the nearest professional baseball recruiting office happened to be in West Capital City. Ironic, in a way, and a tad bittersweet. Those people that had laughed at me when I'd applied the first time, back at age 16, their expressions were priceless. Almost wish that I'd had a camera. This time, I didn't even have to say a thing to them. Korin IS a minor god after all. Every single person that we encountered, Korin knew their full name and no, nobody was wearing name tags.

In the end, I'm glad to say that I did get the job on my own merit. There was an enclosed baseball field behind the offices. Yajirobe was the pitcher and I hit everything he threw at me into the next county. Literally. At least, I think so. Honestly, I don't know where those baseballs ended up.

Later that would become another running gag with me - the lost baseballs. One year Chaozu gave me a box full of baseballs for my birthday, saying that he'd found them out in the forest. Then Tenshinhan gave me another box of them and so did Goku and Krillen and Oolong. Piccolo even gave me a baseball once, he said that he'd found it on Planet Namek. Eesh. I've mentioned that I have some weird friends, yea? Good senses of humor too.

Anyway. The baseball people hired me on the spot. They also hired Puar. She was hired as a mascot but she quickly became my agent instead. The baseball people even tried to hire Yajirobe as well but he said that he already had a profession, thanks. Korin... Well, gods don't deal with money - they don't need money and besides, money is bad for a divine karma. So the officials 'sacrificed' some choice sushi to him. Enough for all of us to have a meal and Korin still took some home.

Puar was impressed. She decided that she wanted to be a minor god someday. I told her that she could be anything she wanted.

I had a baseball uniform by that afternoon. The uniform, it was...well...uhm... Ugly. Kinda sickly pale yellow fabric with dark red text but it was meant to be that way, those were the team colors. The team I had joined were called the 'Titans' and they'd been having a bad year. The managers were eager to add me to the game schedule.

Baseball is easy. The game part anyway. There's a LOT more to professional baseball than the game though. There's practicing for the games, doing exercises every day and traveling to different cities for games. There's the merchandising part - you have to endorse certain products to make baseballs corporate sponsors happy and you have to make time for interviews. Plus you have to maintain a good public image which means that doing volunteer work is required, the team managers schedule it into your week. I didn't mind all of this but suddenly, I had zero free time.

All right. I'll admit it. There is one aspect of professional baseball that I have never understood. The signals. Have you ever watched a professional baseball game? Do they show you the coach of a baseball team, scratching his head and squinting and coughing and pulling on the brim of his baseball cap? That's a signal. Seriously, it's supposed to mean something. But I never figured out what. Because when it was my turn to bat, I'd be focused on the ball and the pitcher and the catcher and looking out for the guys on base - not watching the coaches. I tried, once or twice, to get the hang of the signals but... When coach sneezed, I was never sure if that was meant to be part of a signal or if he was just feeling sick. And in my defense - certain signals were, essentially, ridiculous looking dance routines. I did my best to ignore those simply because it was the only way for me to keep a straight face. Coach took his signals very seriously. Laughing at him during a game in front of thousands of people... Was the kind of mistake that could have left me unemployed.

The next four years were gone so fast that I could hardly believe it. Guess it's true what they say about time flying when you're having fun and keeping busy.

A lot happened in those four years. Puar and I became millionaires. We moved into a small mansion. Yea. A mansion. It was the second time in my life that I owned a home and I'd gone straight from a one-room desert hideout to a classy mansion. Sheesh. To tell the truth, I hadn't really wanted a mansion at all. Puar and I didn't need that much space - especially since we wouldn't be home most of the time - but it's that public image thing. If you're a celebrity then people expect you to have a mansion. The real estate agent had refused to sell us anything less.

After the mansion was paid for, I always put some of my money into savings - better safe than sorry - and did some kind of charity with the rest. I'd never been a millionaire before. I'd lived without money for over half of my life. I truly had no idea what else to do with the stuff. I really didn't need it for myself.

Over the years I donated a lot of money to medical research, especially to the places searching for a cure to blindness. I also went out of my way to defame the Kenshiai so much that they eventually stopped holding the Tournament of the Swords. I helped fund the restoration of some old buildings, including shrines to Korin. And I thought about buying a piece of the Tenkaichi Budoukai.

That's right folks, the 24th Tenkaichi Budoukai should have been held when I was 26. It wasn't. There was a short announcement one day on the news that said the Tenkaichi Budoukai was undergoing a change of management and as a result, the next martial arts tournament was canceled indefinitely. Apparently Piccolo and Goku had torn up the stadium so badly at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai that the owners of the tournament had sold out rather than try to repair all the damage. A fellow named Mr. Satan was in the process of buying all the rights to the tournament.

I made a bunch of 'normal' friends and Puar gained a fan club. Heh. That weirded Puar out, to see all these little plushies of herself. At first Puar didn't think they looked anything like her. "Ack! Are my ears THAT big?!" But I probably bought more of those Puar plushies than anyone else on the planet. I gave them to baseball fans, especially to the kids that came to watch the baseball games. I gave them to reporters that interviewed me and to patients that the team visited in hospitals. I also sent the plushies out to some of the penpals I had picked up from fanmail. (Shout out to my penpal DoraMouse for encouraging me to write all this down.)

Basically I gave everyone I crossed paths with a Puar plushie if they wanted one. In fact I gave out enough Puar plushies to earn a nickname, I became known to the media as the 'catman'. Thanks to this nickname I have discovered exactly how bizarre it is to have a bunch of complete strangers - most of whom are adults - say 'meow' at you. Puar finds it hilarious.

I'm more careful about distributing the plushies now because once I accidentally gave away the real Puar. Oops. Yea, long story but the important thing is that I did get Puar back. She's never gonna let me forget that incident though.

Puar was a total lifesaver, by the way. She had grown up with tons of siblings so she adapted to having a busy social life in a heartbeat and that helped to keep me on track. There are so many things I would have forgotten if Puar hadn't been around to remind me. She was kind of a combination address book, calendar, answering machine, alarm clock and of course, more than anything else, she was my friend.

Baseball is easy but adapting to the lifestyle isn't. I don't think I would have made it as a celebrity without Puars help. I mean going from _grew up alone in the desert _to _sports celebrity _- that's a heck of a lifestyle change. It takes a lot of getting used to.

Not everyone on the baseball team liked me but as long as the team was doing okay then we all got along. Oh I caused a lot of arguments too, that was kind of amusing. The referees had this huge debate over whether or not flying to catch baseballs was allowed. The rules didn't say that you couldn't fly but it wasn't something that anyone had ever done before. After the first time I figured it wasn't fair since nobody on the other team could fly, so I voluntarily stopped doing that.

While all this important stuff was going on, what excited me the most was that I finally had my own phone. I didn't have anyones phone number but I had a phone. Erm. Then I made the mistake of letting my phone number be listed in the phone book. That's when I found out I had two separate fan clubs. One group adored me and the other group liked me so much that they called every day to make death threats. People are strange, enough said.

I did eventually get phone calls from people that I knew as well. Krillen was one of the first to call, he'd seen me in a baseball game on television and wondered where I'd gotten the scars from. Goku called later with the same basic question. Bulma eventually checked in, she was happy for me but she still chewed me out because I hadn't called her first.

Apparently I now qualified as being good enough to date. So Bulma and I would sometimes go to a movie together or go out for dinner. My heart wasn't really in it though. I think the main reason I agreed to any of those dates was because Bulma had a talent for dealing with the media. She'd had a lot more practice than me. So whenever I wanted to escape from a persistent reporter, that's usually when I tried to arrange a date with Bulma. I still didn't think we had a shot at anything beyond friendship and after some dating disasters, I wasn't even sure of that.

Then Oolong called. Oolong was only age 18 at this time but for some reason he'd decided to think long term. He was still using the wealth he'd made off his investments to buy land. And in his own words, he wanted to be remembered for more than stealing panties. Puar and I both wondered if Oolong was feeling well.

Turns out that Oolong had been watching nature documentaries on television. So Oolongs plan was to create a nature conservatory. I guess on your world you have stuff like the Sierra Club, Green Peace and the World Wildlife Foundation. In our world, we didn't have anything like that. We had groups that researched nature but nobody was actively protecting it.

Oolong wasn't the only one who had been buying land. This is why so many of my friends live in relative isolation - Ox King, Tenshinhan, Uranai Baba, Goku, the Briefs - they own all the land around their homes and they aren't going to let anyone build on it. Plus Chaozu had some land in his former empire and I had recently bought the southern desert, where the hideout was. So Oolong, Tenshinhan, Chaozu, Uranai Baba, Master Roshi, Goku, ChiChi, Ox King, Mrs. Briefs, Bulma, Puar and I got together and created a organization called TerraSave. Between us, we owned about a third of the planet and we donated most of that land to TerraSave.

Krillen, Lunch and Yajirobe were the only close friends in our small group that weren't millionaires by this time. Krillen felt awful that he couldn't help out financially with TerraSave, so Oolong hired Krillen to help run the organization. Lunch had her own projects - something about a trucking company and criminal reform program - to deal with. She helped advertise TerraSave by allowing us to paint the logo on most of her trucks but she didn't get involved much beyond that. Yajirobe also remained detached from the project. All he did was ask us to include the Western Holy Lands - that's one of the names for the desert where Korins Tower is - under the organizations protection.

Oolong, Krillen, Umigame and Mrs. Briefs ran TerraSave initially. They've all retired since then - except for maybe Umigame. Before retiring they did a lot of innovative things as far as dedicating international parks, supporting the research of plant-based medicines, creating an endangered species list, improving methods of agriculture and educating the public on general environmental issues. TerraSave still exists. It's a world-wide operation now. With its own tv and radio network, three magazines, a newspaper, a popular chain of stores and at least fifty museums scattered around the world... TerraSave employs almost as many people as Capsule Corp.

In fact TerraSave was such a success that we created another organization during this time. The World Historical Society. There had already been a few scattered History Clubs and some museums, we just united them and tacked on a generous amount of funding. Chaozu was extremely active with the Historical Society for a while since he wanted to make sure that his former empire wasn't forgotten. Uranai Baba, Korin, Kami, Master Roshi and anyone else over a hundred years old made a point of starting to record all their memories because of this society.

Last but not least in the list of contributions, there was the Tribal Council. There are a few major Indian nations on our world. A tribe that guards the base of Korins Tower. The Hinodejin tribe that I'd grown up with. A tribe from the northern deserts. A couple different tribes living in remote mountain valleys. A couple hundred small island-based tribes. And for the past five or so years, these tribes had been trying to put together a group that would wield some political influence on behalf of all Indians. Unfortunately the various tribes didn't always get along with each other. So what we - Goku, Yajirobe and I - ended up doing was supervising the negotiations. Goku accidentally broke a solid oak table. The Indian representatives forgot most of their differences after that and came to an agreement in record time. Also, while they hated to take money from outsiders, the Council didn't want to offend any of us so they accepted a charitable donation to get them started.

Why do all this? Well, _why not? _Oolong had inadvertently gotten all of us thinking about how each of us would be remembered and honestly, we all wanted to be remembered for more than just fighting.

So four years went by in a blur of landmark accomplishments. Life was fantastic. Yea. Nothing lasts forever. Let's leave that part of the story for next time.

**ooxoo**


	15. Prepare for the worst

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 15: Prepare for the worst**

**I**t's amazing how fast things can change. Everything you dream about, everything you've earned, everything that you represent and work for - poof. Just like that. Just when you start to get comfortable, start to feel secure... Voosh. Gone.

Age 28, nearly 29.

When I'm age 28, do you realize what that means? It means that Puar is 21 years old. Puar, the tiny little kitten who I met when she was 7! All the sudden she is turning 21! That means that I'd known Puar for 14 years, half my life. Augh. Where did the time go? It didn't seem like that long...

I was minding my own business. What do you expect? I had a career, a home, a future - everything I needed. More than enough to keep me busy. So I wasn't out looking for trouble. I wasn't even expecting any trouble. But of course, as I was about to be reminded, trouble is just part of life.

The phone call from Master Roshi came on an otherwise perfect spring day. At first I was surprised. Master Roshi doesn't usually make phone calls. He was born before the telephone was invented and he lived without a phone for something like 200 years when he chose to isolate himself at Kame Island. So the fact that Roshi was on the phone at all - that was a surprise. The other part of this... I wasn't at home. I was at work, at spring training. The phone number at the dugout of the baseball training camp, it's not listed. I hadn't given that number to anyone but Puar. So the fact that Roshi was calling me at work - that was another surprise. And on top of all this... The last time I'd really heard from Master Roshi had been at Goku and ChiChis wedding, five years ago.

Needless to say, I had a lot of questions. How had Roshi gotten the phone number? Why was he calling me at all, especially after so many years of silence? I wondered if maybe Roshi was bored and just wanted to chat. Then I remembered that Oolong had moved to Kame Island. So I began to suspect that perhaps the phone call was part of some elaborate prank.

If only it HAD been a prank call...

I answered the phone and wasn't given a chance to say anything more than: "Hello?" Master Roshi didn't waste any words. No "Hi Yamucha, how have you been?" No "Excuse me, Yamucha but could you spare approximately two years of your life for reasons that are going to sound crazy?" He just told me to drop everything and go to Kamis Lookout. Immediately, if not sooner. What grabbed my attention was that Roshi sounded afraid AND serious. The last time Master Roshi had sounded sincerely frightened AND serious at the same time, Piccolo Daimio had been trying to take over the world. Once the instructions had been given, Master Roshi abruptly hung up.

By now, my intuition had decided that this was going to be bad news. Very bad news. Still. I felt loyal to the Kame School. Master Roshi, Krillen, Goku - directly and indirectly, they had all helped me out in the past. So if a crisis had befallen the Kame School then it was practically my duty to find a way to help.

Puar and I said casual goodbyes, as if we'd see each other again in fifteen minutes. Then I hesitated. I'm not sure what prompted me to say it at the time but I told Puar that if I was gone for very long then she should move in with one of her friends. Cause I know Puar hates being by herself - she gets that from having grown up with so many siblings. Puar gave me a confused look. Then I left.

Krillen was already at the Lookout by the time I arrived and he was a nervous wreck. He couldn't even talk about whatever had happened. Kami was also there but he was agitated and didn't say much. I was introduced to Mister Popo, the guard and caretaker of Kamis Lookout, but he wasn't in a talkative mood either.

We waited about a day for Tenshinhan and Chaozu to join us. Recall that we didn't know where exactly they lived. I guess Bulma actually had to resort to using her dragonball radar to locate Tenshinhan. How? Easy. The dragonballs give off a certain type of electronic pulse and that's what the radar detects. When someone on Earth uses an energy blast, a similar electronic signal is given off. Which means that the dragonball radar can detect strong energy blasts. Since Tenshinhan is frequently training, it wasn't too difficult for Bulma to track him down with the radar.

We were also joined by the new Cat Master, Yajirobe. Despite a noticeable increase in his speed and strength, Yajirobe couldn't fly yet. Erm. That's not entirely true. He COULD fly but he chose not to. Yajirobe... Is kind of tricky to figure out in that respect. Maybe he just doesn't want anybody to know what he's truly capable of. Or perhaps he lives by a strict and ancient honor code that doesn't happen to mention skills like flying, so he denies having any such ability. Or maybe he simply doesn't enjoy using energy blasts and other ki skills. I don't know. If I ask Yajirobe why he doesn't fly then he'll just say that he can't - and we'll both known it's a lie. Because I've seen him fly while sparring.

Anyway. Yajirobe chose not to fly to Kamis Lookout. Instead, he had to climb. Remember Gokus legendary bo-staff? Yea. Well. Goku had left his staff at Korins Tower eight years ago and it was still there. So Yajirobe climbed up the staff to get from the top of Korins Tower to Kamis Lookout.

I should mention that Kamis Lookout is in low Earth orbit. The Lookout hovers just high enough to avoid being detected by most ground radars and just low enough to avoid a collision with orbiting satellites. This is important to mention for two reasons. First, it means that Kamis Lookout offers a spectacular view but not much air. Kami had to create a special energy shield around the place just so that we could breathe while we were visiting. Second, it means that the Lookout has the ability to wander. Literally. The Lookout can - and usually does - orbit our planet. Kami only parks the Lookout when he WANTS the place to be found. And Korins Tower is the only place on Earth where Kami can park the Lookout. No other structure is heavy enough to act as an anchor for the Lookout.

Once we had all gathered, the talking began.

We found out right away why Krillen was upset. Goku was dead. Not only that but Goku wasn't even human. He was an alien species that had originally been sent to Earth with the mission of destroying our planet.

The rest of us had some trouble believing this. Goku? Destroy the Earth? I mean not that he couldn't but... No. He wouldn't. Not deliberately, anyway. We knew Goku better than that. And dead? No way! Goku and dead in the same sentence, referring to each other - how was that possible? Goku had inadvertently blown up cars when he was little, how could anything even hurt him? Besides, he'd only been 24. It had to be a joke.

It wasn't a joke.

Kami was upset because Piccolo had killed Goku. At this point Tenshinhan nearly left the Lookout to go demon hunting. But Kami reminded us of his spirit-bond with Piccolo which made hunting Piccolo unnecessary. Because if Piccolo acted up then all we would've had to do was kill Kami in order to destroy both of them and save the Earth. And this was why Mister Popo was upset - he didn't want anyone to kill Kami.

Then Kami explained that Goku had allowed himself to be killed. We were given a long lecture about what the heck Saiyans were. The lesson ended with the announcement that two Saiyans were due to land on Earth in less than a year. Joy. So if Piccolo didn't destroy the world in the near future then these super-strong aliens might.

And so might Gohan, accidentally.

The fact that Goku had a child registered almost as much shock as the news that Goku was both dead and a member of an alien species. The group... We really hadn't kept in touch with each other, so none of us had known. Krillen was the only one who had been introduced to the kid and that had taken place less than a week ago. The shock of Gohan just plain existing was enough for us to deal with. But of course, the shock couldn't end there. If Goku was an alien species then, logically, Gohan was half alien. Not an ordinary child, in other words.

The kid was barely five years old but Krillen, age 26, was already frightened of him. Understand that although Krillen - like most sane creatures - can be reluctant to fight, he is definitely not a coward. When Krillen is terrified of something then there's usually a damn good reason. And Gohan, as it turns out, was no exception. The way Gohan was explained to us, it was unnerving. Apparently the kid had all kinds of power and zero training. So instead of having earned the power gradually, instead of having worked for it - Gohan just plain HAD this incredible power. He didn't really have much control over his power yet and we didn't know if he had any respect for it either.

This news of Gohan was discouraging in addition to scary. I mean, I'd been training for most of my life and this kid was probably born with a power level that leaves me in the dust. How fair is that? How are you supposed to compete with that? You can't.

Want to know what else happened? I'll tell you. As soon as Gohan started fighting on a semi-regular basis then Tenshinhan, Krillen, Chaozu, Yajirobe and I - we all became 'normal' again. To the media and to the general public, we went back to being 'just human'. I'm still not sure whether I'm more insulted or relieved by that change in perception.

By the end of the explanations, none of us envied Piccolo. We doubted that Piccolo would survive training Gohan. Still. Just to make certain that Piccolo didn't try anything along the lines of killing the kid and taking over the world, we all stayed at Kamis Lookout and started our own training. Piccolo knew where we were - Krillen and Kami had made sure of that. So if Piccolo had been planning to act on some evil scheme then us being at Kamis Lookout was enough to change his mind.

For the next eight months, we did very little aside from train and trade stories. Time seemed to pass slowly at the Lookout. Perhaps that was because there was no real day or night there. No weather either. Just a perpetual predawn.

We orbited. That became one of our daily training exercises. Now you'll understand why I went out of the way to mention this earlier. Once we had all gathered at the Lookout, Kami allowed the Lookout to start orbiting the Earth again. At first, separation was accidental. The Lookout is a decent size but, out of respect to Kami, we weren't sparring in the palace and, out of respect to Mister Popo, we didn't want to disturb the gardens. That didn't leave us much space to battle in. So the fights would sort of go overboard. In truth, it's fair to say that we did more training _around_ the Lookout than on it. And when that happened, separation became inevitable. The fight would continue in one direction and the Lookout would just float off in the other direction, following its orbit.

It took us a few days to get accustomed to being on a place that we could feel - and see - moving. It took a few weeks to get used to the Lookout slipping out from under us during battles.

Hence once a spar was finished, we were left with the question of how to find the Lookout so that we could return to it. I suppose that we could have tried to keep the Lookout in view while fighting. Or we could have flown all around the Earth searching for it. But once a spar had finished... Well. I can't speak for the others but sparring doesn't exactly energize me, okay? After a fight I'd be tired and drained and I'd just want the easiest way to get back to the Lookout before my energy gave out completely. Because we did most of our sparring close to Earth orbit. So it was a hellva long way down. Win or lose, I didn't want to end up with a small crater named after me. Get the picture?

Heh. Yeah. This is how I finally became decent at sensing energy.

Ki detection wasn't truly a new concept for any of us. Krillen had studied the talent in Orinji Temple but I don't know when he started using it - maybe around the time when Goku died. Tenshinhan had learned ki detection at the Tsuru Dojo. Yajirobe had gotten the hang of locating energy signatures during his recent years of training against Korin. Chaozu claims that he figured out ki on his own, ages ago, because the process of sensing energy isn't too different from some of his natural psychic talents. Even I had managed to detect the specific unique energy of another creature once before - when I'd sensed Puar at the hospital and understood how she flew. But... Well. None of us were very good at sensing ki. We hadn't had much reason to work on that particular skill.

By having the Lookout orbit, Kami gave us a reason. In order to return to the Lookout, we had to be able to detect Kami and Mister Popo. They weren't horrifically powerful, they never actually powered up and even when they were standing perfectly still - the Lookout was always moving. Even once we became more familiar with their energy signatures and had an idea of what to look for, there were challenges. Sometimes an airplane full of people (imagine the passengers expressions when they noticed us...) or a herd of pterodactyls would be flying by and we'd have to tune out those energy signatures to find the Lookout. Occasionally, Kami and Mister Popo would both power down to almost zero. So we had to learn to find the traces of their ki. And of course, once we had gotten the hang of sensing ki... We sensed each other. And we quickly realized how useful the skill could be in battle. So, yea. We definitely got a ton of practice at ki detection.

After a week, ki detection had become automatic for all of us. By the end of the first month, we were already starting to take the skill for granted.

The other main portion of our training was the sparring. The spars improved our strength, speed and endurance - but the only improvement that Kami truly seemed to care about was our reflexes. Kami was the first sensei I'd had who put so much emphasis on defense, reflexes and reaction time. That's what he was focused on. But that's because Kami is the sort of warrior whose style... Uhm. Let me put this way. Kami generally wins fights by using an opponents power against them. The first move in most of Kamis lethal combinations is to sidestep an opponents attack. I'm sure that Kami could throw a dangerous punch if he wanted to but typically, he doesn't have to. He's spent more than 300 years learning how to defeat his opponents just by dodging and frustrating them.

Speaking of frustration... Have I mentioned that short people are complete pains to defend against? They are. Because half the time you practically have to kneel down to block an assault and then when you're down, they pummel you from another direction. Krillen has perfected this. And Chaozu... I dreaded sparring with Chaozu. If he gets into a trance, he's virtually untouchable. You literally can't even get close to him because he starts pulling telekinetic attacks. Worse, the only way to break Chaozus concentration - quickly enough to survive - is to injure him. And hurting Chaozu can automatically earn you a sample of Tenshinhans wrath.

Keep in mind that Tenshinhan and Chaozu have known each other for most of their lives. They consider each other family, brothers. That's why they can be rather protective of each other. I don't think either of them have any other relatives that are alive. Or perhaps they've just disowned all their other relatives. Limiting personal contacts is probably one of the things that an assassin - even a former assassin - is required to do.

As to Yajirobe, the stealth training that he'd done really paid off. He wasn't relying on his katana as much anymore either. He usually sparred without the blade.

They'd all spent the last five years doing a lot more training than I had. So for me, the first month of sparring was very hard. And I suspect that the ability to detect ki probably made sparring harder for me than it would have been otherwise. Cause it's one thing to go in to battle knowing that your opponent is strong but it's little harder when you know _exactly how strong_. I've always been the type who tries to choose my battles wisely, you know? Just common sense survival. Knowing that someone is strong - hey, why should that stop me from trying? But being able to _feel_ the difference in power... Yea. Sometimes, knowing the details up front is a bit discouraging.

I didn't always lose my spars but it took me a while to get back up to speed. When I did finally catch up, it was mostly me verses Yajirobe or Tenshinhan. The weight of the situation had sort of sunken in by then. We realized that we had to save the world without Goku for once and we understood that the battle was probably going to cost at least one persons life. Krillen and Chaozu had each been dead once before. If they died again... That was it, end of the line. We couldn't wish them back to life again - that's what we believed. So Tenshinhan, Yajirobe and I started to deliberately leave Krillen and Chaozu out of the training.

Haven't I explained that yet? I should. The dragonballs have limits. Kami had created the Earth set of dragonballs and so the artifacts were only as powerful as Kami could make them. This means that there are some wishes that are beyond the Shenlongs ability to grant. If someone dies of natural causes, you can't wish them back to life. If someone who has already been wished back to life once before dies, Shenlong will refuse to bring them back to life again. Also there are some wishes the dragon won't grant for ethical reasons. For example, you can't use a wish to kill someone. Shenlong probably could grant those kinds of wishes but it'd be bad for his karma, so he doesn't.

Two months into the training, we were all acting confident. More for morale purposes than anything else. You can't win if you think you're gonna lose, that's all.

Kami decided that we should put our fighting skills to the test. What happened next... It was kinda like a shared dream. I don't know how else to describe it. Tenshinhan, Chaozu, Krillen, Yajirobe and I were sent on a dream walk. We appeared on Planet Vegeta - so we somehow traveled through space and time - and then a couple of arrogant low-class Saiyan warriors killed all of us in about three minutes total. It would have taken them less than one minute if they hadn't enjoyed making snide comments.

After being killed, we each woke up on Kamis Lookout. We were physically unharmed as if it hadn't really happened. However the memories, the shame, the guilt and the regret caused by our failure lingered. All of us vowed to train harder. But what difference can a few months make, you know? Krillen, Yajirobe, Tenshinhan, Chaozu and I... Each of us had spent the majority of our lives in training. If all those years of study and practice wasn't enough then I didn't understand how a few more months could change anything. So the next two months were extremely depressing. Like I've said before - the worst feeling in the world isn't dying, it's waiting to die.

Our hope was eventually restored a little. News reached us that Bulma and Master Roshi had gathered all of the dragonballs and they intended to bring Goku back to life. Around this time we also got news that Goku was currently receiving training from one of the most legendary martial artists in the known universe: King Kai. It was insane to think that Goku of all people should be worried about getting stronger - but it certainly restored our confidence. It was a good motivation to us as well. If Goku, who was dead, refused to give up then how could any of us - who were alive - complain?

About halfway through our training, another drop of hope. The moon disappeared. The new moon, the one that Kami had created after the 21st Tenkaichi Budoukai to replace the first one since Master Roshi had blown the first one up. The hope came when we learned why the new moon had vanished. Apparently, somewhere down on Earth, Gohan had transformed. Piccolo had destroyed the moon in order to save himself from a giant were-monkey. So with the disappearance of the new moon, we knew that Piccolo was still alive. And, thanks to our improved ki sensing abilities, we knew that he and Gohan were both getting stronger.

Kami was delighted to notice that Piccolo wasn't completely evil. He felt certain that Gohan and Piccolo would be joining us for the battle. That meant the pending battle would be eight of us (Goku, Gohan, Piccolo, Tenshinhan, Chaozu, Krillen, Yajirobe and I) verses two invading Saiyans. Considering this, our collective confidence improved. We had all kinds of advantages. Numbers, home turf, lots of techniques and attacks. There was no way we could lose. At least, that's what we thought at the time.

You know as well as I do that things didn't work out as planned.

**ooxoo**


	16. Do you believe in ghosts?

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 16: Do you believe in ghosts?**

**N**ovember 3rd, 762 A.D.

I was 29. Krillen had just recently turned 27, Tenshinhan was 29 but closer to 30 and I think Yajirobe might have been close to 40. Chaozu... I have no idea. I can't even guess his age. Sometimes he acted like a kid and sometimes, when he was being serious or talking about his former empire, I could have sworn he was around 70.

Because we'd been waiting for it, we all sensed the energy signatures of the two Saiyans as their spacepods got close to Earth. We weren't sure about where they had landed until we felt the power of the explosions that they used to level most of East Capital City. Yajirobe set off for East Capital City right away to assess the damage done and help the victims out.

Yea. There were victims. You really can't blow up part of a city without there being some of those. My respectful sympathy goes out to the people in your world who know how true that is. I heard that one of the cities in your world was attacked semi-recently. For whatever good it does you - know that the people in our world can relate and know that in time, East Capital City and the rest of our world did recover. I'm sure your world and your New York City will eventually do the same. It takes a lot of time to heal from something like that.

We knew by then that Goku was going to be around a day late. So we were nowhere near as optimistic as we had been about a week ago. However the attack motivated us. Anger is a powerful motivation. All those innocent people in East Capital... The Saiyans had incinerated them for no reason.

... I was gonna do this later but let's just get this sorted out now. Vegeta. I hate him, yeah. But not for the reasons most people seem to assume. Vegeta blasted East Capital City and that's one of the main reasons why I hate him. I lost some friends due to that attack.

I mean, lets face it. The taking over the world thing - so what? Vegeta was not the first creature who'd ever tried to take over the world. Before Vegeta came along there was Pilaf, the Red Ribbon Army, Piccolo Daimio and I guess Raditz. Technically there was even Goku - he'd been sent to destroy our world. Also I guess there is some confusion over this point so let me clear it up: none of us hate Vegeta for killing us because Vegeta didn't kill any of us. He might have liked to have killed us and he was definitely capable of it but he didn't. The only warriors that Vegeta killed on his first visit to Earth were one of the Saibamen and Nappa, his own sidekick. The other main reason I hate him though: Vegeta is just plain not a likable type. The whole superior attitude thing, the fact that his ego comes with its own national anthem - you get the picture.

Remember how I mentioned before about Bulma having trouble making friends at school? Because the way she acted... Her attitude... It was as if she didn't just want for other people to say that she was smart, she also wanted them to admit they were stupid. Well. Vegeta has a very similiar attitude problem. He didn't just want for everyone to know that he was strong, he also wanted for them to admit to being weak. The difference is... Bulma keeps busy. She has a company to run, clubs that she is a member of and there are even some brainiac competitions that she participates in. So Bulma isn't a constant annoyance to everyone around her because sometimes she'll be off doing research, inventing things, etc. But Vegeta... Yea. For a long time, it seems like he had nothing better to do with his life than pick on everyone. Seriously. Vegeta seems to pride himself on being an outcast. Guess maybe that's all he knows how to be. If for some reason Vegeta is reading this, he would probably agree. But he'd never acknowledge that, of course and he'd never admit to reading this either.

Oh and just for the record - hate. There are lots of different degrees of hate. Please realize that it is possible to hate something without going out of your way to make that known. Maybe someone reading this hates - I dunno - people who talk during movies, maybe somebody hates that. But that doesn't mean you hunt down and kill the people who talk at movies. Because doing that would be stupid and immature, not to mention illegal. So you just ignore the people who talk during movies and try to enjoy the movie anyway. Vegeta is like that for a lot of us. We hate him but for the most part, we ignore him and try to enjoy life anyway.

Back on track.

Piccolo raised his ki enough that we could all sense him from Kamis Lookout. The Saiyans detected Piccolos presence and headed right for him. So Krillen, Tenshinhan, Chaozu and I left Kamis Lookout in roughly that order. Kami couldn't come with us because he had to help Goku get through Enmas office. Oh, yea. Chaozu and Krillen had explained what death was like for the rest of us so we knew who Lord Enma was.

I flew towards the battlefield, trailing the others. I would have preferred to have gone to East Capital City since I didn't know if my friends over there were okay or not. I wanted to go see them, see if they were okay and help them if they weren't. I really didn't want to be in the battle at all. I was fairly sure that I'd be killed and I felt like I had so much to live for at the time. Friends, a job, a home of my own - all that. What changed my mind about wanting to be at the battle was Gohan. The kid was six years old and he was hiding behind Piccolos leg. Gohan was obviously terrified but he was there anyway and trying to be brave about it. Seeing that was... Well, it was a great relief to know that Gohan wasn't invincible. And it made me decide that okay, if the kid can deal with this then I have to.

Despite the fact that I was the last to leave the Lookout, I was the second to arrive at the battlefield. At the time this struck me as strange because Tenshinhan and Chaozu are not slow. Looking back, I suppose it was smart of them to hesitate. Chaozus attacks work better - or at least, afford him more protection - from a distance. And Tenshinhan probably would have been happy to have the fight start without him so that he could step in and blindside the opponents from an unexpected angle.

Once we'd all gathered, introductions were made for Gohans sake. We had weird introductions. It's like: "Hi, I'm Yamucha and I tried to kill your dad when he was 12. This is Chaozu and this is Tenshinhan, they tried to kill your dad when he was 16. And this Krillen, we don't think he's tried to kill anybody recently. Right, Krillen? Right. Eh-heh. Oh and you've already met Piccolo, he killed your dad a year ago. But don't worry kid, we're all on your side now."

Erm. No, we didn't say it quite that way but we might as well have. Gohan had heard about us - perhaps from ChiChi or perhaps from Piccolo - so he wasn't prepared to trust us very easily. I think the kid might have been as scared of us as he was of Vegeta and Nappa.

About this battle and why I expected to die. There were six of us but the burden of fighting fell on two of us: Tenshinhan and I. Krillen and Chaozu had to hang back so that they wouldn't be killed again. Piccolo was still clinging to his evil-guy reputation and he wasn't particularly eager to ruin that by defending the Earth. Gohan just didn't even want to be there and Yajirobe wasn't there. Goku... Honestly, I don't know why we were stalling for Goku. Strong as Goku is, we wouldn't have wanted to risk him getting killed again either because we wouldn't have been able to wish him back with the Earth set of dragonballs.

Our first impressions of Nappa and Vegeta were that they were both strong and cruel but also very very overconfident. We should have pounded them. If we had all attacked at once then maybe we could have won against the Saiyans. But we didn't because it was more honorable, more fair, to fight one-on-one. And we cared about fairness. Because there we were, defending the Earth. Representing the entire human race. The fight was being broadcast on international tv. We had to be good examples. If we had cheated - and we could have, believe me - then we would have trashed the collective reputation of our species. So instead of anything goes survival rules, we were going to fight by standard tournament rules.

In retrospect, I can't help but notice that so many of our enemies were either one-of-a-kind or a member of a small group. Kind of interesting. Maybe that's part of why cheating wasn't beyond them. Yea - they were flat out evil, that explains a lot. Evil creatures don't typically care about fairness. However... Being the last member a species probably also has the effect of making a creature care less about being a good role model, etc.

Actually it's kind of shame that Yajirobe wasn't there at the start of this battle. He may not have been a huge threat in terms of power but as a samurai, he was really the only member of our group with a LOT of prior experience on battlefields. The rest of us... We'd all been picked on, at times. We'd all been in fights before. We'd done a lot of sparring and training. But most of our professional fighting experience was from tournaments. Tenshinhan had also done some serious work as an assassin but that's not the same. Because the definition of the word 'fighting' requires that there be an opponent, someone who can fight back. Assassins generally don't tend to give their victims much opportunity to fight back. And Chaozu had survived a political revolution but... Yajirobe was the only warrior in our group who'd been through a war. That's WHY he was the one who went to East Capital City - he had an idea of how bad it would be, he understood what would need to be done to help the city recover. Maybe the destructive scenes there didn't shock him as much. I'm not sure if that's something a person can get used to seeing. But if we'd had Yajirobe with us, instead... He's practical. He would have been thinking more about survival and maybe not so much about creating a good image. So maybe the battle would have gone differently. Maybe all of us would have attacked at once.

Anyway. The Saiyans had brought some friends - or rather, slaves - with them. Nappa planted these seeds and next thing we knew there were a bunch of little green creatures with glowing red eyes. Saibamen. The Saibamen didn't speak any recognizable human language, they just shrieked a lot. Seeing these things sprout out of the ground was kind of like watching a b-rated horror film.

Tenshinhan went first. He defeated one of the Saibamen and he made it look easy. He didn't kill his opponent though. This is Tenshinhan we're talking about, remember? The former assassin. He certainly COULD have killed the creature. But he didn't. Tenshinhan must have expected that the same Saibamen would be forced to try to defeat him again, that he would be able to really drag the battle out and buy us more time. The Saibamen started to get up. Then Vegeta - maybe he was impatient, maybe he had figured out that Tenshin intended to stall forever - blasted and destroyed the Saibamen, saying that it was worthless and no longer needed. Even Nappa was shocked by this display of total disregard for life.

At this point all the remaining Saibamen probably changed their attitudes to something more fatalistic. If they had been expecting to survive the battle, now they weren't. The Saibamen were trapped. If we didn't kill them soon then Vegeta would.

Our attitudes changed as well. Most standard tournament rules forbid the killing of an opponent.

Krillen grew up as a monk. He spent eight years living in a monastery. So his whole way of life is heavily based around his faith and his faith includes having respect for every living thing. He'd been seriously ticked off already due to the East Capital City incident, killing the Saibamen like that was just another point against Vegeta. I know that if I hadn't stepped up for the next battle, Krillen would have. But because of his faith, he really wouldn't have wanted to kill anything. So I don't know what would have happened if Krillen had entered the fight at this point. I guess either he would have killed something and never forgiven himself for it or he would have been killed.

What surprised me the most was how evenly matched the Saibamen and I were. I hadn't expected for this creature that had grown from a seed in the ground to have any fighting skill.

For a while all that the Saibamen and I did was block and dodge each others moves. I was holding back a little - not much but a little - since I wanted to study the Saibamens fighting style. Figured information like that might be useful against the other Saibamen. I was fairly certain that I had the match under control though. When the Saibamen started repeating attacks, I saw a weak spot and landed a couple good hits that threw my opponent into the ground. I was willing to kill it but I didn't since I figured that Vegeta would probably save me the trouble.

Then the Saibamen jumped up and latched onto me, pinning my arms to my sides. The creature proceeded to demonstrate an attack that it hadn't used before.

I really don't know how anybody learns a self-destruct attack. That's not exactly a move you can practice.

Abruptly my hearing was gone, the world was silent and kind of hazy to look at. Sort of like seeing everything through a window that's fogged up. Everything was still there but blurry around the edges. Other than that, I felt fine. That confused me. Because I knew that I shouldn't be fine after taking a blast to the chest at point blank range.

I remember that I asked "what happened?" and nobody answered, as if they didn't hear me. Nobody was looking at me either, they were looking down in shock. So I risked a glance down. Uhm. After everything I've been through in my whole life, this still rates as the single most awkward moment. Because I was looking down at me.

That's when I realized that I was dead, I was a ghost. It was strange because it hadn't even hurt and really... My physical body - it was a bit of a mess but it didn't look like I should be dead.

Guilt was one of the first things that I felt as a ghost. I'd let everyone down. I'd died on international television. And Gohan... You know, just perfect. Wonderful. _Way to go Yamucha._ Eesh. I'd died a bloody death in front of a six year old child. I was thinking that if Piccolo hadn't already traumatized Gohan for life then I just did. I made a mental note to pay for Gohans counseling once I got wished back to life. Anger was the next thing to sweep through me because all my life, all that training - voosh. What good had I done anyone? I doubt that I lasted for more than ten minutes. I wanted a refund. I wanted those eight months of my life that I'd wasted training back. Plus the stupid cursed scars, they'd stayed with me. Even as a ghost, I had the scars. Argh.

That anger might have become depression except that suddenly, I had company. Saibamen. Two of them and they were ghosts as well. Since nothing was left of their physical bodies, they couldn't look down and realize they were dead. So the one was still bent on attacking me and the other was still trying to attack Tenshinhan.

On the battlefield of the living, Krillen yelled something and launched a massive attack. Four more Saibamen joined the other two. Shortly afterwards, Piccolo sent the last live Saibamen to its death. Since I was the only one reacting to their attacks now, all seven of the ghost Saibamen turned on me.

Panic is a mild understatement. That fight, there isn't much to remember about it. I had opted to be a moving target. I was dodging mostly but as soon as I realized that my attacks still worked, I began doing some damage as well. I was fighting a lot harder than before. Guess it's true what they say about people fighting their hardest when they feel cornered.

Chaozu realized that I was there. His psychic abilities made him slightly sensitive to the presence of ghosts. So Chaozu killed himself. Maybe he'd learned to self-destruct from watching the Saibamen. Or maybe it was an attack he'd always been capable of. I don't know. He was very careful about self-destructing, I'll give him that. Chaozu didn't want us to have to deal with any Saiyan ghosts. This means that Chaozus intent with self-destructing hadn't been to kill Nappa, he had just wanted to leave Nappa so badly injured that the Saiyan wouldn't be able to continue fighting.

As soon as he was dead, Chaozu came to help me out. This was his second time being dead so he adapted to the change a lot faster than I had. He immediately started using his more dangerous attacks. Remember that as long as he can keep his concentration, Chaozu is capable of inducing - among other things - paralysis and heart attacks. And about the only way to break his concentration is to hurt him. And it's basically impossible to hurt him when he's a ghost. And even though our enemies were ghosts and therefore lacking in physical hearts and bodies to target... Chaozus attacks worked. Because he could target their minds and their souls. That's probably the real danger with skilled psychic warriors - they don't always need physical targets to aim at. Between us, we made quick work of all the Saibamen ghosts. The Saibamen ceased to exist.

This may sound strange but I still feel bad about that. Killing someone is not an enjoyable pastime. Wiping them out of existence... Brrr.

So, yea. It does still bother me. Because you know, what if the Saibamen were just good creatures trapped in a bad situation? Yes, the Saibamen looked different than we did and didn't speak the same language as us... But why did we have to automatically assume they were monsters? And why did we ever agree to fight them? The Saibamen couldn't have had any grudges with us - they'd only just been grown from seeds. And they were just taking orders from their boss when they attacked us. They weren't given much choice. But the rest of us... We had a choice. Was the choice that we made the right one? Maybe we could have rescued the Saibamen. Befriended them. Maybe we should have at least tried that. Doing that would have been more heroic, right? And... Imagine. If we had been able to get the Saibamen on our side then that would have meant seven additional warriors in our group. Making for a total of thirteen at the start of the battle. Vegeta and Nappa probably still would have had the advantage against our group in terms of power and overall fighting experience but I have to wonder if they would have been able to keep an eye on everyone at once. Perhaps we could have caught them off guard.

My greatest concern with fighting is that you can't win. Really, you can't. Because eventually you become just like the monsters you defeat - merciless and only caring about strength and all that. I'd seen it happen before, to tournament fighters. With a few victories they went from nice losers to creepy egotistical bullies. After we wiped out the Saibamen ghosts this concept really concerned me. Was I becoming a monster, my own worst enemy? If we had been strong enough to defeat the Saiyans easily then would we have become as cruel as they were?

Were we already on that path?

Chaozu shared my concern, he said something like: "The line between right and wrong is very thin and sadly, you can't do what's right without sometimes stepping on the other side of that line." Think about that. It's true. A lot of people viewed us a heroes but at the same time, some people saw us as villains. The hard part to accept is that both points of view are equally valid. Because yea, we saved a lot of people but we didn't save everyone. And we did a lot of good things with our lifetimes but maybe we'd done them for the wrong reasons or maybe we should have done a lot more. You know - nobody is perfect, nobody is ever completely right. That's all.

Tenshinhan agreed with that sentiment when he joined us. Kind of a weird scene. Tenshinhan was sitting beside himself - literally, the ghost was next to the body. He was berating himself for making too many errors when he'd fought Nappa. He has a bad habit of doing that. Even back when he had won the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai, all that Tenshin had seemed to notice were the tactical mistakes he'd made. Tenshin was also a bit puzzled because he'd died without part of his arm but as a ghost, he was intact.

So as far as the alive warriors it was down to Krillen, Piccolo and Gohan verses Nappa and Vegeta. Let me pause and say that this must have been exceptionally hard for Krillen. We'd inadvertently put a huge burden on his shoulders. Krillen was the last human representative at the battle. Plus he was likely still haunted by the memories of his previous death, where his murderer had been Namekian. Not to mention his memories of the 23rd Budoukai, where Piccolo had nearly killed him. So working with Piccolo - that took a lot of courage.

For unclear reasons Piccolos attitude abruptly did a 180 degree turn. Rather than conquer the Earth, Piccolo decided that he was going to defend the world. Krillen was upset about us being dead. So much so that he hadn't hesitated to murder the Saibamen, he didn't question Piccolos motives and he also didn't seem to care if he was killed again. But, for Gohans sake and because they felt that they needed Gokus help, they stalled.

Tenshinhan, Chaozu and I left the battlefield at this point. We headed for the clouds. We had a 'might as well beat the crowd' mentality since we honestly expected Krillen, Gohan and most of the Earths population to be joining us soon. We arrived outside of Enmas office and began waiting for our turn to be judged because there was a long line. We weren't the only ones that had died recently. This is when I found out that my friends from East Capital City weren't okay. Jeez, I've never felt so utterly useless - all my life spent training and for what? I hadn't saved anybody. Not myself, not my friends. It was definitely a low point.

Goku arrived. We sensed him probably a mile away and he covered the distance so fast that he must have been traveling at close to the speed of sound. We didn't even see him, we just felt this massive upsurge of energy. It reached Enmas office and vanished, so we knew that Goku had met up with Kami and had been teleported back to Earth. Even when he was back on Earth, even though he hadn't actually powered up yet, we could still sense Gokus energy from outside Enmas office. It was absolutely ridiculous that anyone could be that strong.

Piccolo joined us. In the sense of he showed up and ignored us. He's about as friendly as a cactus sometimes.

Shortly after Piccolos arrival, we sensed another power surge. It didn't last long. We found out later that this surge had been caused by Gohan being severely ticked off. Does that make any sense? Piccolo had killed Goku, kidnapped Gohan and beaten the kid up for about a year. Yet Gohan adored the evil Namek. Gohan practically considered Piccolo family. You know, if someone had done all that to you - killed your father, kidnapped you, beaten you up - you'd probably be glad they were dead. Gohan's a bit different I guess. The kid was sincerely convinced that Piccolo had died for no other reason than to save him.

This is my story and so I'm allowed to speculate. Piccolo might hate me for bringing this up but I'll risk it. We didn't understand Piccolos motives at the time but looking back at this battle... Piccolo didn't know us that well. We didn't really trust him that much, either. We didn't have a lot of reason to trust him. He didn't exactly have a good record with us. Piccolo had to be aware of this. When he looked at the corpses on the battlefield, he may have known our names but he mostly just knew us as being friends of Goku. When he looked at the surviving warriors... Piccolo knew that Krillen claimed to be Gokus best friend. He knew that Gohan was Gokus son. He knew that Goku himself had been training in the afterlife and that Goku was on his way to join the battle. So what might have happened, if Piccolo had continued to stand around acting calm and indifferent? Yes. Granted - he had earned some respect for Gohan by training the kid. Maybe that WAS enough of a reason for Piccolo to step into the lethal blast from Nappa and save Gohans life. But what if Piccolo hadn't done that? By then Krillen had been too beaten up to save the kid, even if he'd wanted to and so he wouldn't have been able to punish Piccolo for not doing anything. So Gohan would have died. And _then_... Then Goku would have arrived. And Piccolo might have been the only healthy warrior, standing there with a bunch of corpses around him. It might have looked bad. It might have looked as though Piccolo had allowed us all to die. It might have looked as if he had turned against us and sided with the invading Saiyans. Who knows how Goku would have reacted to that kind of sight. When Goku did finally make it to the battle, he was upset enough and that was _without _Gohan or Krillen being among the corpses. So I guess what I'm saying here... Is that maybe Piccolo didn't just step into that blast purely for Gohans sake. Piccolo... He might have felt trapped, at this battle. Sort of like the Saibamen were. If he fought, he risked death. If he didn't fight... Then there was no way that Goku or Kami would continue to trust him, so he risked death anyway.

I'm not sure what happened to Kami. Since Piccolo was dead, we knew that Kami was also deceased but Kami didn't join us. Also we knew that with Kami and Piccolo gone, the dragonballs were out of commission. That was some additional misery. Without the dragonballs how were we going get wished back to life?

Then the fireworks began. It was insane enough just being able to sense the battle but to be able to see it from where we were... Eesh.

Nappa was blown into oblivion. Vegeta seemed to enjoy turning the sky electric blue. Then Goku and Vegeta chased each other around the globe, powered up and put on a light show that turned the northwest desert into a collection of craters. Yajirobe, Krillen and Gohan each decided to participate in that battle. I'm sure that each of them had perfectly sane reasons for joining the fight but I have no idea what those reasons were. We did feel Gohans power level spike again - guess he transformed, not sure how since Kami hadn't replaced the moon yet - and after that Vegetas energy signature started fading more rapidly.

Somehow they all survived the encounter. Take note: they all survived. Krillen, Goku, Gohan and even Yajirobe. I had been killed by a Saibamen. Chaozu had self-destructed. Tenshinhan had died from a combination of blood loss and exhaustion more than anything else. Nappa had killed Piccolo. So Vegeta didn't kill any of us and if he says otherwise that's probably just his ego talking. (Or wishful thinking.)

Uh... This may sound semi-morbid but I don't mean it that way. Ten years ago when Krillen and Chaozu had died for the first time due to Piccolo Daimio, we had put their bodies into capsules for safekeeping. We hadn't intended to bury them since we knew that we'd wish them back. So the first semi-encouraging thing that happened after the fight with Vegeta was over was that Bulma, Roshi, ChiChi, Puar and Oolong collected our dead physical bodies. They put Tenshinhan, Piccolo and I - nothing physically left of Chaozu - into capsules which meant they might try to find a way to bring us back. We didn't know how they'd revive us without the dragonballs though.

Don't you just love it when there are suspenseful endings? Heh. Don't worry, the story isn't over yet. I'd have trouble typing this if I were still a ghost.

**ooxoo**


	17. Oh joy More training

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 17: Oh joy. More training.**

**O**kay. To sum things up from where I left off last time: I was dead. Piccolo, Kami, Chaozu and Tenshinhan were dead as well. Without Kami alive, the dragonballs weren't gonna work anymore. So we figured that we were stuck with being dead even though our friends on Earth were acting like they could wish us back to life.

Piccolo decided to enlighten us and thus the word 'Namek' was added to our vocabularies.

Try to stay with me on this. Vegeta - maybe he had seen a Namek before, I really don't know - but somehow he assumed that Piccolo was a member of an alien species called the Nameks. So therefore because Piccolo was a Namek then maybe there was a whole planet Namek out in space somewhere. And then apparently Vegeta thought: "Hey, maybe they have their own set of dragonballs over on planet Namek."

Yea. Sure. And maybe if you just close your eyes and think about sushi, you'll magically appear in a fancy seafood restaurant.

I mean _come on! _We had no reason to trust any of Vegetas assumptions. How could Vegeta have known what a Namek was or that there was an entire planet of them? How could Vegeta have known that only Nameks could create dragonballs? It's not as if Piccolo had told his life story during the battle. Piccolo hadn't even known what a Namek was until Vegeta had accused him of being one. Doesn't it seem like if Vegeta had known so much about Nameks and dragonballs - why hadn't he and Nappa just gone straight to planet Namek in the first place? He wouldn't have even needed to ever come to Earth.

Some days... You get to feeling like the whole world is a stage and a few of the actors have been reading more of the script than they were required to. Ha. Take that Vegeta, your crazy assumptions indirectly saved our lives. Sorry, couldn't resist wording it like that. He'd hate to be accused of doing any such thing. Bad for his image.

Bulma, along with Krillen and Gohan once they were out of the hospital, jumped aboard a 500 year old alien spaceship (the one that Kami came to Earth in, no idea how they found it) to go see if planet Namek actually existed. Can you imagine that? Getting into a 500 year old spaceship, leaving your home world for the first time and going in search of a distant planet that you didn't even know existed a couple weeks ago. That's what Bulma, Krillen and Gohan did.

Tenshinhan, Piccolo, Chaozu - especially Chaozu - and I were kinda skeptical about this whole space quest idea. We were mostly resigned to the concept of being permanently dead by then. We went through judgment one at a time and each of us ended up being told to travel down Snakes Way in order to receive training from King Kai. That kind of boosted our collective morale because we knew that we wouldn't have been granted training if we were going to stay dead. So only 'kind of boosted our morale' since we'd each get another chance at life. The trouble with getting another chance at life is what's implied - eventually we'd each have to die again. Still. None of us refused the offer.

Snakes Way is, for lack of a better description, a really long road that is suspended in the air. The road connects heaven and hell to other places like Lord Enmas office and Princess Snakes palace. The road ends before it connects to King Kais world.

The thing about Snakes Way and all those places it connects to, I guess you don't necessarily have to be dead to visit them. Most people who go to Enmas office are dead but Korin, Kami and other gods - they didn't have to die to get there. They could have visited while they were alive and I think so could almost anyone else that wanted to. It's just that not many people want to go to Enmas office before they are dead. I don't blame them. Lord Enma has a temper. Guess he's allowed to be cranky though. Lord Enma has probably been overworked for his whole life and he's got to be over a million years old. Plus when we had started using wishes to reincarnate people, that didn't make his job any easier.

King Kais world is small and very dense. His planet has ten times the Earths own gravity. Once we finally arrived on King Kais world - it had taken about a month for us all to get through judgment and down the path - it took us a couple days to be able to stand up.

About King Kai himself, he's a round blue fellow with antenna and pointed ears. We were kind of bewildered by his appearance. I think that perhaps we had expected King Kai to look a tad more human. Or divine. Or something. Understand that King Kai is a guardian of the north quarter of galaxy. Which means that he is just slightly younger than the galaxy. His age can not be less than seven digits long. This is why King Kai is a legendary martial artist. Think about it this way: if you had billions of years to practice something, odds are that you'd get very good at it. Plus if you were around for billions of years and remembered jokes from your childhood... Then those jokes might not be funny anymore. Most of the time King Kais sense of humor was so outdated that we didn't get it. But we learned to laugh at the jokes anyway, so as not to offend King Kai.

He can be impressive when he wants to though. After cheerfully explaining the gravity situation to us - while we're all embedded about five inches into the ground from our crash landing - King Kai went on to inform us of the current events. Apparently King Kai has enough telepathic abilities to keep tabs on anything in the universe that captures his interest.

King Kai knew that planet Namek existed. He knew that the planet was populated. He knew that the Nameks had their own set of dragonballs.

Pause one second here. Planet Namek. Is it just me or does it seem strange that the planet is named after the main sentient species? That would be like calling Earth 'planet human'. Just a random thought.

King Kai knew that Krillen had been doing some limited training with Gohan. _Limited_ only because if Krillen, nevermind Gohan, powers up fully while inside a spaceship then the spaceship is going to cease existing. But the exercises had allowed Krillen to build his power and had also allowed Gohan to begin gaining some control over his power. King Kai knew that Krillen, Gohan and Bulma must be on planet Namek by now. King Kai knew that Goku had been released from the hospital on Earth and had promptly departed, headed for planet Namek. And King Kai probably knew a lot of other things which he didn't bother telling us.

Once we could stand up, King Kai offered to let us talk to Goku. We wanted to know how that was possible. So King Kai made the telepathic connection and he told Goku that we'd just arrived on his world. (To a guy that's billions of years old, anything that happened under a year ago is considered 'just now'.) The conversation was strange - strange because it was possible at all - but in a good way. Goku was obviously surprised to have his dead friends talking to him and for the most part, we were surprised as well. We hadn't heard from Goku in ages because he'd been dead for about a year and we'd all been busy with our own lives before that, so it was nice to have the chance to talk to him. Though we had no idea what to say aside from something close to: "Hi, we're dead. How are you?" Oi.

In the past, as a kid, Goku had usually been a source of infectious optimism and confidence. No matter how weird or awful the situation seemed, Goku was the one who could motivate - and frighten and embarrass and surprise - us. So when the connection was made... I think that's kinda what we were hoping for. We wanted to hear from the confident kid that we'd known. For better or worse, Goku had grown up. And all the news that he had for us was bad. Goku had heard from Bulma. The fact that Bulma can build a functional telephone even when stranded on an alien planet should be noted, I suppose. She'd informed someone on Earth - maybe her parents - of what was going on and they'd called Gokus spaceship, to pass the news along. So we heard it from Goku that Vegeta was also on planet Namek and so was something else, something that apparently made Vegetas power seem like nothing by comparison.

King Kai became serious and he turned his antenna towards planet Namek.

There are certain people that you never want to see act serious. It's flat out a very bad thing if these certain people get serious. Goku is one of these types, if he gets serious then it typically means that someone is going to die. Master Roshi, King Kai - if either of them get truly serious then the world is ending.

King Kai almost had a cardiac arrest. He started screaming about an evil guy named Freezia that Goku had better stay away from. This whole time the rest of us were fairly weirded out, just watching and wondering how many more ultra-strong evil guys the universe could hold.

After he'd calmed down and ended the talk with Goku, King Kai turned to us as if nothing had happened. He told us that if we couldn't make him laugh then he wasn't going to train us. That turned out to be the hardest part of the training. In retrospect, King Kai didn't teach us any martial arts. We just got strength, stealth and endurance training so that we could move quickly and lift heavy objects despite the intense gravity. We were all skilled enough to use the kaioken attack but King Kai didn't trust Piccolo with that kind of power so as a result, none of us were allowed to learn the move. Kind of a disappointment. We could have put the kaioken power-up technique to good use.

Piccolo hadn't acquired a sense of humor yet and did not even attempt to make King Kai laugh. Instead Piccolo announced that the rest of us were freaks. Then he shunned us so that he could meditate. Being dead was not a fun experience for any of us but Piccolo in particular didn't see any reason to try and make the best of it. Maybe he still felt trapped. Anyway. Yea. He was, even as ghost, wearing the weighted clothes. The cape, the turban. We knew that. We'd been made aware of the weighted clothes before. He'd had to drop them to keep pace with Goku at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai. Wonder if he'd had to drop them to train Gohan? It seems likely. But he'd kept them, in death. So that became Piccolos training, to hover while wearing weights in the intense gravity. The rest of us on King Kais world - we didn't have this option. Even if we had worn weights for all the training at the Lookout, we probably wouldn't have worn weighted clothes to the battlefield.

The fact that Piccolo had died in weighted clothes... Really confirms to me that at the start of the battle against Vegeta and Nappa, he couldn't have had any serious intentions of getting involved. He couldn't have been willing to defend the Earth. He'd been willing to show up and watch our backs but he must have been hoping that the rest of us would have been able handle the situation without too much help from him.

Chaozu, Tenshinhan and I spent five days on King Kais world. We took turns to do the training that had taken Goku alone a couple of months to complete. It didn't challenge us much.

On the sixth day, King Kai was using his antenna to tune in the news of the universe - he'd been doing that a lot lately - and he suddenly got excited. He said that Goku had arrived on planet Namek. Shortly after that we were told that Krillen and Gohan had gathered all the Namek dragonballs. Somebody could be wished back to life.

Wow. That was fast.

We didn't know who should leave first. We all wanted to be alive again but... Personally, I did not want to be wished to planet Namek. Not under the circumstances. That place was doomed. King Kai had been serious about it, Goku was getting serious about it - there's no way I wanted to go there. I felt that the best option would be to wish the whole group back to life and back to Earth all at once. Make some wish like: 'undo all the damage that the Saiyans did to Earth'. However Tenshinhan wanted to see how strong this Freezia creep was. We'd heard a lot about Freezia in the last few days but Tenshin thought the stories were exaggerated. He didn't believe that anything could actually be so strong. Chaozu just wanted to be wished back to Earth but if Tenshinhan had gone to the Namekian world, he would have gone there too.

Piccolo vanished while the rest of us were debating. He'd telepathically told Gohan to wish him back to life. With a second wish, Piccolo was sent to planet Namek. We were certain that it had been a waste of wishes, that Piccolo would be dead again - and soon.

Take note of the plural. Wishes, not wish. Dragonballs are only as powerful as the creature who creates them. The Namekian elder that had created the set of dragonballs native to his world was more powerful than our Kami. The Earth dragonballs could only grant one wish per year. The Namek dragonballs could grant three. We had expected three wishes to be more than enough to get all of us back to life. We'd only even been arguing was because we were trying to decide whether we should ask to appear on planet Namek or on Earth.

In truth though Piccolo being revived was a smart move. With Piccolo back to life, Kami was also revived and the Earth set of dragonballs were restored. Plus it allowed the rest of us dead warriors to bug King Kai about teaching us the kaioken technique now that Piccolo was gone. King Kai said maybe later. Aside from a short lecture on kaioken being dangerous, King Kai mostly ignored us. He became very focused on the current events. He spoke aloud from time to time. That's how we learned that Piccolo had gone to planet Namek and that Vegeta was apparently on our side now, etc.

We also learned a tiny bit about a Namekian child named Dende. Not much. I'd meet him later and learn a lot more. But the story of Dende... It's just one of those things that makes you pause and wonder. Dende had apparently been rescued by Gohan and Krillen earlier in the week. Dende developed healing talents sometime after meeting them. How convenient, yea? What if Gohan and Krillen hadn't been able to rescue him? What if they'd rescued someone else? What if they had rescued a whole village of Nameks - would it have helped them, in the long run or would being in a large group just have made it harder to hide? What if they hadn't been able to rescue anyone? What if Dende hadn't developed his healing talents at this time? What if he hadn't developed healing talents at all - he could have turned out to be a warrior. What if Dende hadn't been willing to trust and help the warriors from Earth? He could have run away from them and gone into hiding. He could have refused to make the wishes. He could have surrendered to Freezia or tried to fuse with another native of his home world. It could have so easily been different. As bad and bizarre as things seemed at the time, I can look back now and understand that it could have been a lot worse. Every little coincidence... Nothing is truly random, I guess. It happened the way it happened for a reason.

Four annoying dead guys who posed a lot showed up on King Kais world and said they were the Ginyu Force. Tenshinhan took care of two them. Chaozu and I also contributed to kicking these spirits off the planet. That really wasn't even a fight, it was more of an exercise. We just literally threw them off the planet. Their spirits might still exist somewhere. King Kai was proud of us but not for long. He got badly agitated when the fight against Freezia began. He kept urging Goku and the others to just get out of there. And he started to say "I told them so, I warned them" when fighters started dying.

Vegeta died first. Krillen died after that. Gohan, Piccolo and Bulma escaped. Goku was still fighting.

This is when the Earth dragonballs became important. Goku and King Kai decided on a wish, they told Gohan and Gohan told Piccolo. Piccolo telepathically got ahold of Kami. Then Kami and King Kai connected. Someone down on Earth - I suspect that it was Yajirobe, Korin or maybe even Mister Popo - gathered the dragonballs and summoned Shenlong. A wish was made to revive everyone on planet Namek that had been killed by Freezia.

The revived Nameks immediately used their own dragonballs to wish everyone except Goku and Freezia to Earth. So Gohan, Bulma, Vegeta, Piccolo and around a hundred confused Nameks suddenly appeared at some random location on Earth. There's a kodak moment. Bet they startled whoever was around.

For some reason Krillen was still dead. He hadn't been affected by the wishes. Gohan wanted to know if Krillen was somehow still on Namek and Goku wanted to know why his best friend hadn't made it to Earth. Krillen wasn't in either place. We realized that Shenlong had restored Krillen to life once before so we couldn't get him back with the Earth set of dragonballs. We all became seriously worried about Krillen because we didn't know where his spirit went. Krillen never came to King Kais world and we couldn't sense him on Snakes Way. Not even King Kai could find him.

Planet Namek blew up. King Kai wasn't sure what had happened to Goku.

**ooxoo**


	18. Returns

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 18: Returns**

**W**e spent the next five months worried sick about Goku and Krillen. That was pure hell. I think I can empathize with people whose kids go missing now. You just spent every single day wondering if the kid is okay, if they're even alive and if there was something that you could have done to prevent the situation. You feel like you've aged a century in an hour. I wish I could give people who have suffered this kind of loss the dragonballs so they could find their missing person. Because nobody deserves that kind of torture. That's just too much stress for a person.

You can only use dragonballs once a year. The Namek year is shorter than the Earth year. So Piccolo, he was age 10 in Earth years but in Namek years he was 30. He ages three times faster than the rest of us. That explains a lot about how he acts, doesn't it? This little piece of trivia should also help you understand Kamis reluctance to fight. Kami was 501 Earth years old which made him age 1,503 in Namek years.

What this also meant was that we only had to wait a few months before our friends on Earth could use the Namek dragonballs again. When it was time to make more wishes, nobody even had to say it... Wait, I take that back. Vegeta was still stranded on Earth, remember? And this is the other reason that the Namekian dragonballs are important to us - you have to speak Namekian to make a wish. Gohan had befriended the reincarnated Nameks. They trusted Gohan, they listened to him and they made the wishes for us. Vegeta didn't speak Namekian and hadn't exactly made friends. So Vegeta couldn't even try to interrupt and make a wish for immortality or anything. If we'd been using the Earth set of dragonballs, Vegeta might have been able - and probably would have been tempted - to do so. Instead he showed up at the Kame House just to watch.

Everyone other than Vegeta, we all knew what the wishes had to be for our peace of mind. We missed our friends. We had to find Goku and Krillen.

Krillen was successfully wished back to life and then back to Earth via the Namek dragonballs. He still doesn't remember where he was very clearly after Freezia killed him. He thinks it might have been heaven. We think his spirit was turned into a cloud.

They attempted to wish Goku back as well but the Namekian dragon gave an error message. Apparently Goku couldn't be wished back to life because Goku was alive somewhere. And he couldn't be wished to Earth because he wasn't ready to return to Earth yet. All of us were stunned. Gohan and ChiChi in particular. Ouch.

Since Goku didn't want to return home, the group on Earth still had one wish left with the Namekian dragonballs. Cue another debate on who should be wished back to life. Tenshinhan was determined to stay, I'm not sure why but I think perhaps he wanted to bug King Kai some more about the kaioken technique. Chaozu - who might actually be more dangerous when dead - decided to stay so that Tenshinhan would have someone to spar against. He was also considerate enough to explain that he thought I should go back since I had a job and it's hard to keep a job when you're dead. Eesh. Chaozu has such a way with words sometimes.

So poof, I'm alive again. Very grateful to be alive again. They even got me back to Earth with that one wish. I appeared in West Capital City, in a water fountain. No idea why I appeared in a fountain. I was getting drenched but that didn't matter. It was just good to be alive. And it was so nice to be back on a planet with normal gravity too! I felt as light as a feather. Thanks to the training, I was faster than ever. I flew straight over to the Kame House - at a speed that instantly dried all my clothes - because I knew that everyone else would be there.

Krillen had appeared at the Kame House but was then literally hugged into another zip code by Gohan. I actually crossed paths with them first and we returned to the island as a group.

Puar was hysterical with happiness and I'd missed her tons as well. We hadn't even heard from each other in a little over a year, that's eight months of training plus six months of being dead, so we just spent a while hugging. Sorry to sound mushy but it was a tender moment. You just get used to living around certain people. You get used to seeing them every day. So when suddenly they aren't around anymore, the change makes you a bit hollow inside.

Roshi then casually asked me when the wedding would be. I thought he was kidding! So I replied with humor, told him that Puar and I didn't intend to get married. Then Roshi told me that he was serious and that he'd meant the wedding with Bulma and I. Oolong informed me that I was the main reason that Bulma had gone to planet Namek. Apparently Bulma had only gone in order to wish me back to life. Krillen, Gohan and Roshi agreed with Oolong. Yajirobe even offered to perform the ceremony.

Talk about your awkward situations. Jeez. I don't think I've ever seen Bulma blush so much in her entire life.

That someone would go to a different planet for my sake - it was extremely flattering. Too good to be true kind of flattering. I was hesitant to buy that story. Bulma must have been overly emotional when she'd announced to everyone that she wanted to marry me. After all, she'd made that announcement after watching me die on television. And her real reason for going to planet Namek? I don't know. But I suspect that getting to pilot a spacecraft and the hope of studying alien technology had something to do with it. More than anything else, I think it's safe to say that Bulma has always loved her work.

I'd known Bulma for thirteen years by then and we'd both changed considerably since we'd first met. We were weren't compatible anymore. I don't know that we ever were very compatible. We had different lives, different goals. It just wasn't meant to be. While I was willing to give our so-called relationship a chance, I didn't really believe that it had a chance.

The room froze a bit, everyone was tense. Bulma and I must have given the impression that we weren't really all that close - since we weren't - because most of our friends never mentioned a relationship between us after that. One of the Nameks that was there broke the silence by asking what marriage was. Everyone took that opportunity to make jokes and remember how Goku had once asked the same thing.

You know, when you're a little kid then you do want to get married just because it is a tradition. When you're little, you tend to think that marriage is a required part of life - it's just something that an adult does. It's on that unwritten list of things that everybody has to do - buy a house, get a job, get married. That's kinda how I'd thought about marriage when I was a kid. Then when I was a teenager, dying of loneliness and stuck in the middle of a desert - obviously the idea of a serious relationship had held appeal. I was 29. I had grown out of those ideas. I knew that marriage was a choice, not something that you had to do. I had friends, fans, co-workers and a full time job. So I wasn't bored or lonely anymore. I still had some pride and still valued my independence. Suddenly marriage held zero appeal to me and that remains true to this day. I'll probably always be single. I don't mind dating sometimes but I just want to live my life and be myself without having to compromise too much for any one person.

Bulma wasn't upset. I doubt that she was even disappointed. We never formally broke up. We didn't need to. What was there to break up from? We didn't spend much time around each other - our schedules wouldn't have allowed us to anyway - and that got the message across better than words could have.

No, Bulma didn't fall in love with Vegeta right then. She had a crush on someone at Capsule Corp at that time. She wouldn't start to fall in love with Vegeta for almost a year and by then we would know that world was endangered again. For some reason, Bulma almost always falls in love when the world's endangered.

Anyway. Speaking of the prince - Vegeta is many things. Including paranoid. He'd been wished back to life and back to Earth with around a hundred Namek refugees, most of whom had moved into Capsule Corp. The Nameks hated Vegeta. They blamed him for contributing to the destruction of their home planet. They regarded him as evil because he'd annihilated one of their villages and the Nameks that he had killed, stayed dead.

Uhm. The wishes HAD only reincarnated the creatures killed by Freezia. So this part was not deliberate. If that wish... And now perhaps you can begin to appreciate why we have to be so careful of what we wish for... Because if that one wish had been worded better then maybe ALL of the recently deceased Nameks could have been returned to life - including the ones that Vegeta had killed. But that wish had been understandably rushed, due to the circumstances of the Namekian world being on the brink of exploding.

Also... If that one particular wish hadn't been so rushed... If they had worded it to ONLY revive the recently deceased Nameks and Krillen... Then Vegeta would not have been brought back to life.

Yea, back on track. From what we understood - and we don't understand him much - Vegeta had grown up in warzones. He'd never been on a peaceful planet before. He'd never been reincarnated before. Consequently, he had less than no idea how to react. He wasn't sure what to make of people who tried to be nice to him. i.e: Bulmas parents. They're nice to everyone. Look at their history! They'll take in and attempt to spoil more or less anyone who happens to show up on their doorstep. I know, I've been there.

Five months ago, the Briefs had taken in the entire surviving population of Nameks. So of course they had also offered Vegeta a place to stay. Why not? They'd figured that inviting one more alien in wouldn't do any harm. But Vegeta didn't trust them. And he'd had no reason to feel safe at Capsule Corp with a bunch of angry Nameks around that were just waiting for him to take a nap or show a sign of weakness. As a result, he had spent most of the past five months out the wilderness - with Gohan and Piccolo keeping tabs on him. Among others. I don't know if Korin or Kami could have made Vegetas life miserable on short notice but Madame Uranai Baba almost certainly would have done so, if needed. Guess it wasn't necessary. Vegeta had survived on his own before, so in that respect he was fine. But he was a nervous wreck. He was absolutely positive that everybody was out to get him. Because... Well. Most of us were.

When Krillen and I returned, Vegeta was more concerned than ever for his own welfare because now 'Earths Special Forces' - I don't why we ever let the media call us that - had him badly outnumbered. Guess that Vegeta was under the impression that we'd all learned kaioken or something. He might have actually overestimated us for once. So Vegeta left the planet as quickly as he could.

The main reason that he'd been stranded was simply because there really wasn't any way for him to leave. There weren't any functional spacecraft left on Earth. Apparently all of the spacepods that had ever landed on our world had been either blown up, damaged beyond repair or put to use transporting our friends to planet Namek. It had taken the whole five months for Capsule Corp to build a brand new spaceship from scratch. Bulma and her parents had only put the finishing touches on it a couple days ago and she had brought the vehicle with her to the Kame House. This was the real main reason that Vegeta had shown up - not to watch the wishes get made but to collect the spaceship. Once the wishes were done with, Bulma handed over the capsule. Vegeta promptly accepted it - despite probably being convinced that the vehicle had been sabotaged. But maybe he knew enough about spacepods to risk it. Maybe he'd had to repair spacepods before. He gave an excuse about wanting to find something called Kakarotto and departed. We saw the spacepod launch, we sensed the energy leave.

That was fine with all of us. One less thing to worry about.

Krillen would later explained to me that 'Kakarotto' is Vegetas pet name for Goku. Vegeta has insisted that Kakarotto is Gokus actual Saiyan name. Again, I'm going to ask: how the heck could Vegeta have known? Vegeta was apparently a child when his own world was blown up so it's not like he would have been able to consult any census records of the Saiyan planet - if such things even existed. Raditz had called Goku by a Saiyan name as well, I guess but that hardly makes sense either. From what Kami has told us, Goku was sent to destroy the Earth practically right after birth. He'd been an infant, lost in space and barely a toddler by the time he reached our world. Who the heck would have bothered to keep track of his Saiyan birth name? Why would the Saiyans have even named him? His blood relatives didn't know him, they didn't raise him and they might not have even expected to ever see him again. It doesn't add up, in my mind. I don't know if Goku understands it either.

All things considered, it is amazing that Goku had even made it to our world. What if he had stayed in space or landed somewhere else? What if the spacepod had malfunctioned? What if Goku had died en route? Or what if the crash landing had killed him? What if he'd survived the trip and the landing only to discover that his alien lungs weren't compatible with oxygen? How had the Sayians even known about our world? Who had programmed the coordinates for Earth into whatever spacepod had brought infant Goku here? Ever since I'd learned of the phrase 'Saiyan', these kinds of questions have lurked in my mind. And I'm not the only one. My fellow human defenders of Earth, we'd argued about these types of subjects a lot while training at Kamis Lookout but we didn't have any answers. Anyone who might have known - Kami, Korin, Mister Popo, Uranai Baba - wasn't talking about it to us. So we couldn't dwell on these topics for too long. We'd had to focus on other things.

Any day that you are reincarnated on is a good day.

I spent a few hours at the Kame House, mostly to trade stories and get caught up with everyone. Extra especially with Krillen. It was just such a relief to be able to see him again, after all the worrying that we'd done. However Krillen wasn't entirely recovered from being dead. He needed some space and we respected that.

Gohan talked with me instead. Then Gohan introduced me to Dende and some of the other Nameks, they shared a few stories as well. Adapting to our Earth was a struggle for them. Heck, adapting to the fact that other worlds existed was a struggle for them. They had come from a planet that had three suns and no moon. It had always been daytime, basically. The Nameks hadn't been able to look up and see stars in the night sky. They hadn't thought about other worlds being out there somewhere. Aliens had just shown up one day, as far as they were concerned. Some of the Nameks were still kind of in shock. And now they were stranded on Earth, an alien world. A place that they'd never known or even heard of before.

It had been five months but... Even with help from some of the Earths residents, adapting was a challenge. Kami, Mister Popo, Korin, Yajirobe, Oolong, Master Roshi, Puar, Gohan, Piccolo and Bulmas parents are just part of the group that had done their best to make the stranded Nameks comfortable. They had tried to help bridge the language and cultural gaps. But the water and air of Earth still tasted funny to our Namekian guests. Earth animals looked and acted strangely. The weather was colder. The noise level was louder. The traditions, habits, economy, technology and common diseases of Earth people... Really, the Nameks were doing their best to cope. They had been introduced to the concepts of night, snow, money and gender. They had survived the chicken pox, amid other adventures. But overall the Nameks just weren't comfortable on Earth. So they were already thinking about trying to wish for a new home world.

No one was certain if the Nameks could essentially reincarnate their old planet. None of us had ever made that kind of a wish before. We didn't know if it would work or if bringing a whole planet back would be beyond the power of the dragon. The Nameks tried to stay optimistic about this but debated with each other. It would take them the next few months to decide exactly how the wish should be attempted, the wording would be important. The rest of us... We didn't know what to expect. Impossible things had always happened before but we'd had some of our wishes rejected just recently, so we were cautious about sharing the optimisim. During the next few months, we sometimes tried to gently prepare the Nameks for the possibility of being stuck as Earth residents.

Eventually I returned to my own home and tried to get things sorted out. I was sick for a few weeks. Being dead is not good for the immune system. And there was a lot of headache-inducing paperwork to go through, which didn't speed my recovery. Because even though I was physically, mentally and emotionally alive again - as far as the legal system was concerned, I was still dead.

The legal system didn't have a procedure for revoking death certificates. So they had a bit of a problem with me being alive again. And since I don't have a copy of my own birth certificate... Yea. This whole trial was a headache. Even after the doctors testified that I was clearly not, in their expert medical opinions, dead to a court full of witnesses... I got the distinct impression that the government lawyers resented having to change their ways. At one of the hearings they'd even read my obituary as evidence. I wasn't flattered. For the record, I don't know if anyone else bothered to go through this. Maybe Krillen did, eventually. Because he would have had to be legally alive in order to get a marriage certificate. Perhaps also Goku. He might have needed to be legally alive to apply for a drivers license. But that's about it.

When you are legally dead, you can no longer own property. Or be paid an income. Or be eligible for medical insurance. Or buy groceries - because nobody wants to accept payment if they think your credit died with you. That kind of thing. So during the time that I was in and out of court, trying to get my death certificate revoked, I transferred pretty much everything that I owned into Puars name. I could have chosen someone else but I trusted Puar. She'd always been a great and loyal friend. She'd taken care of the mansion and the bills and so forth for the entire time that I was gone. Plus she had been mildly interested in law ever since we quit being bandits. Puar became more actively interested, after this. Law became her new hobby. She did a lot of reading, watched court shows on tv, talked to the experts and helped prepare my case for the trials. Her patience through these challenges was invaluable.

The paperwork that I had to catch up on wasn't all bad though. Some of it was quite interesting. Puar had gotten stacks of sympathy cards and letters and packages from baseball fans after my death. There were even some awards. I'd been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame while I was dead. Why do people wait until you're dead to do nice stuff like that?

After the initial shocks, my employers and co-workers were glad to have me back among the living. I told them that I'd been revived by Kamis power in order to avoid having to explain the dragonballs. Since I'd been wished back to life in early May, baseball season was just starting. As soon as I had recovered my health, I was able to return to work. It was almost as if I'd never died. The media and everyone else - thankfully they didn't make too big of a deal out of it.

We should pause a moment to speak about the obituary. When Vegeta and Nappa came to Earth, they landed in a city. So their first act had been to level a section of East Capital City. If they had landed out in the wilderness then maybe the average person on Earth wouldn't have even known about them. But since their first act had been to cause mass destruction in a populated area, Vegeta and Nappa instantly made headlines. They were news. We had reporters, camera crews, military troops and outraged citizens show up to watch that battle. So... When I died during that battle... My obituary was created by the media. Not by Puar, Krillen, Master Roshi or anyone that actually knew me. Tenshinhan and Chaozu as well, they died on international television and their obituaries were written by the media. We were all called heros for trying to defend the world but... There was also a wide array of speculation, concerning our origins. Nobody knew my age or if I had any surviving family so there were all kinds of theories about who my relatives might be. The most popular theories made me out to be part animal. Chaozu was referred to as a ghost, a zombie and a vampire doll - as if he'd been created or at least cursed by magic. Tenshinhan - the media couldn't decide if he was alien, divine, part monster or part shapeshifter. Seriously. The media had called us 'the human warriors' during the battle but then, after we'd died, all the media wanted to write about was how we were _not human enough_. I hate to say that Krillen was lucky to die in a battle that wasn't being broadcast but I can just about imagine what the media might have written about him, if he'd died on Earth.

For me... I have to live with these theories resulting from my media obituary because I don't have enough information about my family to disprove the rumors. I feel plenty human but maybe one of my parents WAS only humanoid. I don't know. I try not to let it bother me too much but... People read my obituary and took all the speculation as fact. So now complete strangers occasionally feel entitled to act as if they know more about my origins than I do and that can get profoundly irritating. Chaozu and Tenshinhan - they don't seem to let the media speculation bother them. I have no idea if any of their relatives are still living but Chaozu, at least, can trace his ancestory. He's human. Tenshinhan is also human but sometimes acts like the monster reputation could work in his favor.

We shouldn't overlook that someone else got a media obituary. Piccolo had also died during the televised battle against Vegeta and Nappa. His obituary made the front page of several newspapers. Audiences all over the world celebrated the death of what they considered a demon. Residents of West Capital City even had a spontaneous parade. They remembered the 23rd Budoukai and also Daimios attempt to conquer the Earth. They didn't know, remember or realize that when Piccolo died then the Earth also lost its guardian, Kami. For the security of the Lookout it's probably just as well that the media had ignored their returns.

One other notable thing happened in May: Gohans birthday. He turned seven. In the past his birthdays had always been family affairs. But this year, since Goku wasn't around, we were all invited. Uhm. It was kind of a somber party. Gohan didn't understand why his dad had wanted to stay away from home. Nevertheless, we managed to cheer him up a little. Imagine Piccolo playing trivial pursuit. (Some good blackmail material here. Glad that I had a camera.) Now you understand how we cheered Gohan up. Trivial pursuit is one of Gohans favorite board games. It quickly became obvious why he liked the game so much, Gohan won every single time. It could have been all the studying he'd done in his life but there was a spark of natural genius in the kid. I suspect that his survival had more or less required him to be exceptionally bright.

I'm not trying to make Piccolo sound social, by the way. He wasn't. While he didn't go into total isolation after returning to Earth, he was still wary. Piccolo had spent about a month being dead. He'd fused - something that he wouldn't mention to us for years but we did notice the change in his power. And he'd battled Freezia. He'd gone from not really wanting to defend the Earth to fighting for the survival of a whole separate planet. The experience of just seeing the place that his own ancestors had called home... That had affected him. He'd spent the past months threatening Vegeta, sparring with Gohan, helping the stranded Nameks and pretty much avoiding everyone else. Because even though Piccolo was both stronger than ever and still increasing his strength... He was paranoid, as well. He'd cautiously welcomed Krillens return. But me... Piccolo had only spent about a week on King Kais world. I'd been stuck there for almost half a year. Piccolo must have thought that all the extra time training in a high gravity environment would have done me some good. I don't know if he expected me to just rip his head off one day or what. Even when we were at the same location, he kept a distance.

Gohans birthday was celebrated on Kame Island. Not in his own home. ChiChi went through a severe personality change at this time. She seemed to stop caring about Goku and she attached herself to Gohan since he'd come home, he'd come back to her. If she had been strict before, now the degree of her protectiveness was bordering abuse. She was just really controlling. ChiChi didn't want Gohan to set foot out of the house. She schooled him at home to keep him away from other people because she didn't want anybody to take Gohan from her.

It's worth noting that her fears had a solid foundation. Gohan had been taken from her before. Twice. Once by Piccolo, who had spent the better part of a year training the kid. Gohan hadn't gone home after each lesson. He'd been surviving in the wild. He hadn't been able to send a postcard or make a phone call to let his mom know what was going on. No one had asked for ChiChis permission or had even tried to explain the situation to her right away - so of course she felt overlooked, left out and cut off. Maybe she'd expected to have some input into Gohans training. We'd never given her the chance.

The second time Gohan had left, he did get ChiChis reluctant permission and he also gave her a proper goodbye. But he'd been leaving to try and find planet Namek.

Getting aboard an ancient spaceship to go see if another world actually exists... That experience had been scary enough for the people going. Remember that at the time, our brave friends didn't have a lot of answers. They didn't know exactly what - if anything - they would find in outer space, how long the journey would take or if they'd be able to return home. Yet the separation had been way more scary for ChiChi, who had been left behind to worry that she might never again see her only child. Left behind to fret about all the potential dangers and feel angry that anyone would question her right to be a parent. She'd seen and cared for her child every single day of his life, up to the age of four. Then he was basically gone and didn't come home much before the age of six. He'd been out training for and participating in dangerous battles far away. There hadn't been anything ChiChi could do to prevent it. There still wasn't much that she could do to prevent things. Gohan slipped off to hang out with Nameks on a near daily basis.

As much as I sympathized with Gohan at the time... Nowadays I can better appreciate that ChiChi only went a bit crazy because she cared. If she hadn't cared then Gohans absences wouldn't have bothered her. But she was a good parent and she wanted to be better. Losing Gohan had really hurt her. Not being able to do more to protect her son deeply troubled her. Not even being able to keep up with Gohan anymore - as a toddler, he hadn't been able to fly but that had changed - it frustrated ChiChi. She'd missed him a lot and didn't know how else to show it.

We all made a point of telling Gohan that he could come over anytime he needed to, in case things got hectic. And we all tried to talk to ChiChi about her behavior. Unfortunately there isn't a nice way to tell someone they're being a jerk. So I'm afraid that despite good intentions, we might have made things worse. ChiChi had already taken a lot of criticism from the media about being a bad parent. So she hardly even listened to us. Recall that the fight against Vegeta and Nappa had been on tv. People worldwide had seen Gohan at that battlefield and the general public had disapproved of a kid being at the fight. ChiChi still gets hate mail about that but thankfully, it doesn't affect her as much anymore.

Ox King did finally talk with her. ChiChi was willing to listen to her father since he could relate to being a single parent. Goku was still alive but he was out in space somewhere, unwilling to return to us. So ChiChi felt as if she was a widow. That on top of being the single mom of a kid who now had more power than she knew how to deal with. I can't say that any of us blamed her. We didn't support the way that ChiChi was acting but we did kinda understand why she was being that way. She was scared and angry. She was grieving.

Maybe if we'd invited her to train with us at the Lookout... ChiChi might not have become strong enough to help us attempt to defend the world but if she'd wanted to then she could have at least learned to fly and detect energy - and perhaps that could have made her life a little better, in the long run. Maybe it would have given her the skills to feel more comfortable around and connected with the warriors in her own family. I don't know. Wish that we'd at least thought to invite her, anyway. Even if she had turned the offer down, maybe the simple act of getting the invitation would have shown her that she had some support and that she could be included. Perhaps that would have lessened her burdens.

Life sort of went back to normal for a while. Though we were all wondering about Gokus situation. Plus Gohan did visit occasionally, sometimes with Nameks and sometimes without. Oh, and my death threats from strangers stopped for a bit because those people thought I was dead already. It's funny what you miss sometimes.

I formally retired from fighting even though I doubted that I'd seen my last fight. Why would I have received training from King Kai if the Saibamen had been my last fight?

Have you ever watched a nature show on television? One of those shows where there is some guy hiding in the bushes of a remote jungle, excitedly saying things like: "And if you look over there, you can glimpse the tail of a rare man-eating predator! It's an extremely dangerous creature but I'll do my best to get its attention now!" _That _kind of nature show. Well. Consider for a minute how it might feel _to be that animal_. You're minding your own business and then some overly cheerful human shows up with a camera crew, pretends to hide - you can still hear and smell them - and then proceeds to make detailed assumptions about your personal habits. In our world, sometimes the animals can speak for themselves. Instead of just humans talking to other humans about what a wild animal is doing, sometimes the animal can actually explain. And sometimes, in spite of this, the humans continue to stick to their own theories. So the people will be sitting in the bushes talking about what an animals eating habits are and the animal itself will be standing in the background going: "Uh. No, not really..."

Why do I mention this? Easy. The Nameks. They mostly stayed at Capsule Corp but some of them did visit other places. Including my house, after I'd been reincarnated. Sometimes we talked. Sometimes we trained and sparred - not often since I kept pretty busy working. I invited the Nameks to baseball games but they declined, claiming it was too noisy and fearful of how other humans might react to their presence. (The average resident of Earth had no idea about what had gone on out in space against Freezia, so they associated our stranded Namekian guests with unpleasant memories of the demon Piccolo Daimo.) Still. Most of the Nameks who were up to exploring were pretty friendly. We got along okay, they didn't bother me. They had a lot of questions. Trying to explain human behaviors to them gave me a new appreciation for things.

You wouldn't think that anyone who has ever been dead could take much for granted. You're wrong. It wasn't deliberate but I guess that I'd come back to life with certain expectations. Because I'd grown up with a certain ideas of what life meant and what sort of objects should be included in that definition. Even when I'd lived in the desert, I'd always had access to vehicles and electricity and... The Nameks had lived so differently. They had done without so many of things that I defined as necessary. Their stories made me a lot more aware of how much I had to be grateful for. However... Yea. There would always be two or three Nameks in any visiting group (and they ALWAYS visited in groups) that... Instead of just asking ME about what I was doing and why, they'd ask each other. In their own language. So I would often end up feeling as if I was one of those wild animals on a nature show, being observed and talked about - but not listened to - by another species.

In September we were able to use the Namekian dragonballs again. With the first wish, a very well worded wish, we brought both Tenshinhan and Chaozu back to life and back to Earth. The Nameks used the other two wishes. They asked for a new planet and - after pausing to exchange farewells with us - then wished themselves to their new home.

They took some souvenirs from Earth with them.

The Nameks left with eighteen backpacks that were stuffed to the brim with capsules. Since I'd helped them to pack, I know what they took. A handful of those capsules contained small furnished houses so that the Nameks would have some shelter while they got their own villages back under construction. The rest of the capsules contained objects that the Nameks hadn't had on their own world before. The Nameks that had hung around Master Roshi had learned to play cards. Others that had befriended Yajirobe had learned to play chess, checkers and go. Puar had shown the younger Nameks how to play with things like hula hoops, jump ropes, marbles, kites, yo-yos and water pistols. Oolong had demonstrated the game of horseshoes and had tried to explain soccer. So they packed a variety of toys and games. Somebody must have impressed them with a windchime because they took a bunch of those. They had discovered music and packed instruments. They had discovered tea ceremonies and packed tea sets. They had discovered photography and packed cameras. They had discovered microscopes and had run away screaming - but packed some anyway.

Namekian warriors had spent most of their time on Earth - once they'd recovered from the idea of _being on Earth _- doing intensive training and sparring with anyone willing to accept their challenges. They did not feel proud of their past failure to defend their own planet. They wanted to improve because they were afraid that Vegeta or someone like him might eventually visit their new home world. So the warriors packed everything they'd thought that they would need to continue getting stronger. They took gym equipment and training gear plus armor, shields and weapons. The weapons that they chose were mostly blades and staffs, traditional stuff. There were some variations - enchanted blades and weighted staffs, etc. Guns weren't practical for the Namekian warriors since - noise issues aside - they did not have a way to make more ammunition. Also, most of the enemies that they were currently frightened of were known to be bulletproof.

Adult Nameks had the ability to pull cloth out of thin air but this had ever only resulted in one type of fabric. So they packed sewing kits and large rolls of materials with different textures and patterns. Especially the fabrics that were water resistant. Even the rocks of Earth were fascinating enough to seem valuable to them, they packed a sizeable collection. The Nameks had never seen polished rocks before but they liked them, so they took some rock tumbling equipment as well. Korin, of all creatures, had taught them about dental care. They packed toothbrushes and dental floss. The tribe that guards the base of Korins Tower - Upas tribe, that tiny little indian kid that Goku had rescued once, he was seventeen now - had gifted the Nameks with all kinds of protection charms. So they left with handmade blankets, statues, baskets, sandals, leggings, belts, capes, headbands, scarfs, necklaces, earrings and bracelets. Some of the Nameks had even gotten genuine tribal tattoos. Those who had spent a lot of time with our Kami had begun to learn to read in Earth languages. So they took stacks of books - including at least one unabridged dictionary (Have you ever SEEN an unabridged dictionary? Those things could be used as walls for houses!), some martial arts training manuals, geology and chemistry textbooks, a couple vegetarian cookbooks, volumes of poetry and the scripts of classical plays. They took shovels, rakes, watering cans and pruning shears. They took canoes and bicycles.

If the Nameks had been expecting their new world to have electricity - and they weren't - then they probably would have taken still more stuff. As it was, we only let them pack solar or manual powered tools, appliances and vehicles. And they realized that going from our world with one sun back to their world with three suns might be hard on their eyes, so they even packed sunglasses.

The Nameks could have taken solar panels to set up on their home world. They could have taken all the tools they'd need to CREATE electricity and build a power grid. They weren't interested.

Mostly, the Nameks took plants. Hundreds of thousands of plants. We're talking entire greenhouses full. Flowers, herbs, vegetables, fruits, grasses, shrubs, grains, vines, cactus, algae...They took a sample of everything the Earth could offer. But their main focus was trees. They took all kinds of trees. The Nameks wanted to try and create at least an orchard, if not a full blown tropical forest on their home world. I don't know why the Nameks didn't just wish for a world with a forest already on it. Guess they felt that this approach would be more honest.

So basically if everything went as the Nameks hoped... Then their new world was going to be an entirely different place than their old planet had been - and all just because they'd been able to visit another populated world. Being killed and losing their native world had not been great experiences for the Nameks but good things had eventually come out of the bad. They'd been stranded on Earth for nine months by our calendar which means roughly two years by the Namekian calendar. They'd learned a lot, gotten new ideas and done some shopping. When the Nameks had first shown up on Earth, I'm told that they had all looked pretty much the same and had been wearing similar outfits. They didn't leave looking that way. Even a casual observer could have picked out individuals. It was clear that their future generations weren't just going to be healers or warriors. Being on Earth had changed them.

For better or worse, we'd helped to shape and influence a whole separate civilization. It's not something that everyone has the opportunity to do, that's all. I sometimes think back on this moment and wonder what kinds of items I would choose, if I had to start a colony on another world. It's not always easy to decide.

Anyway. The fact that their first wish had worked at all was an education for us because now we knew - and the Nameks knew - that restoring an entire planet was not beyond the dragons power. This would turn out to be a good thing for all of us to be aware of, in the future. And the fact that their second wish had also worked, that was a great relief. We'd been concerned. Because when the Nameks wished to be transported to their new home, they'd had to be careful. The wording for that wish had been tricky as well. Imagine. What if they'd accidentally left some of their peers stranded on Earth? What if they'd accidentally taken the Earths population to the new planet Namek with them? At the very least, if they had just flat out wished for all the members of their species to go... We might have lost Piccolo, Kami and the Earth set of dragonballs. It could have been a disaster. Thankfully, it wasn't.

Tenshinhan and Chaozu had not been reincarnated at the Kame House. They had appeared on Earth in separate locations and only arrived on the island after the Nameks had left. They were glad to see everyone again. We celebrated their return and traded stories for a while. Chaozu had done an extensive amount of mind-reading in the afterlife and was not impressed with the higher level gods. Tenshin confided that he had almost learned the kaioken, he was sure that if he trained a bit more then he'd get the hang of it. We weren't sure whether to be happy for him or scared of him.

Scared seemed like the most sensible option. Anyone who can train for nearly a year in high gravity AND survive trying to apply kaioken, the power-up technique to Kikouhou, a life-draining attack... Uhm. Yea. Have we mentioned not to tick off the former assassin? No? We should.

Since the subject of fighting had come up, Gohan mentioned two words: Super Saiyan. Krillen and Piccolo had some idea of what the kid was talking about but the rest of us were clueless. So Gohan explained it. For once we didn't even have to be around Goku to be in shock because of him. That planet Namek explosion, all that energy we'd felt - it hadn't just been the planet exploding like we'd assumed. Most of that energy had been Goku. He'd trained in a hundred times the Earths own gravity (can anyone else say OW?) and had gotten very angry in order to become something called a Super Saiyan.

Lets pause for a moment. A hundred times the Earths own gravity. Can you even begin to imagine what that would feel like? No. I don't suppose you can. Because if you're a 'normal' human then five seconds of that kind of gravity would probably reduce you to a bloody smear on the floor. If the sheer weight of your own skeleton didn't instantly kill you, the air would be so dense that you'd suffocate.

Hey, I've trained on King Kais world for five months. That was roughly ten times the Earths own gravity. Trust me, that was enough. It hadn't been overly challenging but it hadn't been comfortable. And if I'd been alive for that training - not just a ghost - then it probably would have been harder on me.

The point of all this? Goku, of course. As it turns out, training in a hundred times the Earths own gravity was an accident. How do you accomplish that kind of training by accident? Well. All of us, even 'normal' people, have ki. And for me, even when I'm not powered up... Even when my aura isn't visible - it affects things. Lights flicker when I walk through a room. Radios and televisions get staticky if I'm in the area. And that's just me. Krillen - who has made an effort to be familiar with technology - goes through electrical appliances the way that some people go through socks. Tenshinhan tried, once, to setup an email account. The computer exploded. Even Master Roshi puts out enough ki to mess with compasses and reset digital clocks. What I'm getting at here is that if it had been any of us aboard that spaceship to Namek instead, the same thing could have happened. Goku... I don't know why he didn't consider this risk. The spaceship was full of computers and yet there he was, powering up to train. He should have known better. I guess he's lucky that his ki didn't cause the life support systems to melt or knock the navigational systems off course. Still. Causing the gravity room to lock on its highest setting... Only Goku could survive a mistake like that.

Remember how the Nameks had been staying at Capsule Corp? And how Gohan had befriended them? It seems likely that the Namekian warriors heard about this gravity training that Goku had done before any of us. We'd known that Goku was training when he traveled to planet Namek but we hadn't known that a gravity room was involved. The Nameks might have learned this. They could have spoken with Dr. Briefs and made a request. And Dr. Briefs loves nothing more than a new project. So the Nameks, they may have taken a capsulized gravity chamber with them to their new home. I'd helped them pack their capsules. To think that I may have seen the prototype gravity chamber... But I hadn't known what it was, at the time. And there had been so much else to pack that I hadn't asked. By the time that I realized what I had seen the Nameks were gone, Dr. Briefs was preoccupied with other things and I was also busy with my own life - so I never got around to asking. You know... Even though I'm not a fan of training, it still lingers in my head sometimes. Just another _what if_...

After the Super Saiyan explanation, Krillen was wondering if he'd inadvertently created a monster. (Because Goku getting very angry had been the result of him watching Krillen get blown up.) We hoped not but nobody was sure. Gokus other transformation, the were-monkey one, we knew that Goku didn't recognize anyone while he was transformed. So we didn't know what to expect from a Super Saiyan Goku. Would he recognize any of us? What if he didn't?

Gohan felt that maybe his father had forgotten us - that maybe this was why Goku hadn't been ready to return to Earth. And what would happen, if Goku somehow returned to us before his memory returned to him? Tenshinhan and Chaozu left to do more training, in case. Krillen, Gohan and Piccolo started training more often as well. Even I did some training. We were all preparing for our next major fight and we thought it would probably be against Goku.

... Uhm. We need to go back to ChiChi for a moment. Yea. The idea that her husband could have become a monster, maybe she was also aware of this before we were. Gohan might have tried to explain the concept of Super Saiyan to her long before he ever mentioned it to the rest of us. It couldn't have struck a good chord.

And there's another reason... I wasn't completely aware of this at the time but... The Kame House. Master Roshi had trained Ox King, ChiChis father. Master Roshi had trained the legendary Gohan Senior, adoptive father of Goku. Master Roshi had trained Goku. So ChiChi and Goku... As much as they had come to love each other - and even though their wedding was held in a shrine - to a certain extent their marriage had originally represented a traditional arrangement. Because ChiChi had been educated in the Kame fighting style by her father. And Goku had learned the Kame style as well. When a boy and a girl are both heirs to the same dojo, it's customary for them to get married. That way, eventually, the couple can take over the dojo and run the place together. Granted - the world had Son Gohan. The kid was ridiculously strong and intelligent beyond his years. Both of his parents were students of the Kame style. But Gohans age... He was only seven. No one, not even the legendary marital arts masters, can honestly say that their training is complete at that age. Gohan couldn't inherit the dojo until he was old enough to be considered fully trained in at least one style. So the potential burden of inheriting - and revitalizing - the dojo would still officially fall to ChiChi...

And also, now, to Krillen.

Master Roshi wasn't sure that Goku would ever come back to Earth. He didn't know if Gohan would even need to study the Kame style - that would almost seem like a step backwards for the kid. But Krillen was there and ChiChi was there and in spite of the massive gap between them in terms of power, they were both students of the Kame fighting techniques. So as far as Roshi was concerned, it was only natural and traditional to try and nudge them together. For the future of the Kame dojo, for the preservation of the fighting style... Ever since Krillen had been reincarnated again, Roshi had been trying to set them up.

ChiChi reacted with violence to the suggestion of a second marriage. Krillen wasn't sure how to react. His feelings were mixed, he'd always wanted a family of his own but not like this. Not an arranged marriage. Not something that basically required him to take the place of his best friend. Krillen was fairly certain that Goku would make it back someday. ChiChi wasn't certain but she still loved her husband. The situation was awkward but they managed to show a decent amount of respect for each other. Gohan remained friends with everyone, whatever his own feelings were on this. I'm not sure how much anyone told the kid. Master Roshi saw this as a good sign and would continue - sometimes subtly and sometimes not so subtly - trying to matchmake the couple until Krillen, sick of this, finally left the island for long enough to meet and start dating other women.

So... If Krillen hadn't been wished back to life... If we hadn't been able to get Krillen back again... I'm left to wonder, now. When I was reincarnated Master Roshi had been the one that had asked when I was going to marry Bulma. Maybe the old master had a secret motive for asking that. Maybe he would have tried to nudge ChiChi and I together, to eventually take over the Kame dojo. It's weird to even contemplate. Much as I respect that family... Yea. Brr. My opinion of marriage was not good at the time. My opinion of arranged marriage is not good either.

If I hadn't been so busy with work then perhaps I could have been better informed of all this. Because around this time, Krillen more or less moved in with me. He still got mail at the Kame House but... Yea. It's kind of hard to meet new people when you're living on an island that's only big enough for one house. I had a mansion in the city. I wasn't even home a lot. Puar gave him a set of keys. Krillen moved in and explored. He'd never lived in a city before, there was a lot to explore. He wasn't at the mansion much either, I guess. And he often returned to the Kame House. I didn't get to meet hardly any of the friends that Krillen made. Master Roshi has met all of them. Krillen went out of his way to make sure of this, he was getting his point across. Showing his decision. And... Also... Krillen truly respected ChiChi. He thought that taking on the burden of the dojo would be a nice thing to do for her. So he visited the Kame House with each of his dates having the idea that someday, if things worked out, one of these ladies might eventually be helping him to run the martial arts school. Krillen wanted Master Roshi to meet the ladies because Roshi might have to help train them.

Maybe this is why the dating scene never really seemed to work out for Krillen. A mansion in the city is impressive. A house on a tropical island can be romantic. But Roshi was capable of being both a pervert and, when the mood struck, a critical sensei. He didn't mind flirting with all the visiting women but he didn't have any intention of training them. So... Instead of just pursuing the women that interested him... Maybe Krillen was searching for a lady with enough martial arts skill to impress Master Roshi. Hence, the relationships never seemed to last very long.

On the topic of dating... In the past, Bulma and I had done some double dating. My favorite couple to go out with had been Tenshinhan and Lunch - just because they would casually maul anyone who refered to them as a couple. It had been more like hanging out with friends, people I could relate to. Not people that Bulma was trying to impress. Uhm. I never went on a double date that included Krillen. I might have, if he'd asked. But after coming back to life I didn't have a ton of free time, I didn't have a girlfriend and I didn't really care to go out. So Krillen never tried to arrange it with me. But... He did arrange it with Puar. So Krillen would go out with whatever woman he was trying to get to know better. And Puar and her boyfriend would go out with them. Even though I was at work a lot, that was...something...to become aware of.

I consider Puar as my little sister. Anyone who's going to date her... I know, technically it's none of my business. But you worry about the people that you consider family, right? I wanted to be sure that they were treating her with respect. That's where my focus ended up being with all this. So I didn't become better informed of Krillens whole situation until later. Because nearly every time that I saw Krillen, I was interrogating him about Puars dates. I went through a phase where I became the stereotypical over-protective big brother. Puar wasn't offended. She says that I didn't scare too many of her admirers off. She was twenty-two. She'd been dating, on and off, for a while. Even before I'd died, she'd made a lot of friends. Most of them were animals but some were humanoid. Only a very few of those friendships would develop into relationships. Puar knew what she was doing. She's a shapeshifter and perfectly capable of ditching anyone who doesn't respect her. She might have even put those skills to use on Krillens behalf, during this time.

I'm glad that Puar was able to be a supportive friend. Krillen needed one. Wish that I hadn't been so selectively blind. Thankfully, I would get the chance to make up for it later on.

As for Puar.. Not all of her relationships were bad ones. Most of them were pretty normal. They'd last for a while and then fade. There would be ups and downs. The breaks were often clean and mutual - though some were teary and some were angry. Sometimes the breakups would be followed by makeups. It was rare. Puar had seen what dating had been like for me and she didn't take the idea of commitment lightly. So when she broke up with someone, she tended to have enough reasons not to give the thing another chance. But Puar had one boyfriend whom she met during this time that she would date for years to come. Because while I'd been dead, she'd gone home for a while. To her home. She'd stayed with some of her relatives and revisited the area where she'd grown up. She'd crossed paths with a childhood friend. They'd hung out and gotten caught up with each other. Their friendship was rekindled and eventually, it blossomed. What they had... It seemed like the real thing. It was nice to see. I even relaxed and was happy for them. I got used to having them both around. To seeing and hearing from them as a couple. I was prepared to accept the guy as family and that's a heck of a place for me to get to - but that's how much I care about my adoptive little sister. I wanted her to be happy. For a long time with this guy and this relationship, she was. They wouldn't start drifting until Puar went off to college to study law.

There's a strange little story that goes in here. You'd have to ask Gohan, Piccolo or Krillen for details on it since they're the ones that saved the world from Garlic Junior. Guess everyone else on Earth was under some kind of spell. That's why no one else remembers it. Krillen says that we were all acting like zombies and Gohan says that I bit Piccolo on the arm. I can't imagine myself doing that but I don't have any evidence to prove otherwise.

Oh, you want to know who Garlic Junior is? Eh. Just a descendant of an ancient evil guy. One of Kamis old enemies. Kami and Garlic Senior had a fight about three hundred years ago. If Kami had lost that fight then there's a chance that Garlic would have ended up being the god of our world. Thankfully, Kami had won and Garlic had been banished to some other realm. It had taken Garlic Junior a few hundred years to get loose and seek revenge. It took Gohan, Krillen, Piccolo, Kami and Mister Popo less than an afternoon to defeat him. That's how it was explained to me, anyway.

Almost a whole year slipped by relatively peacefully. See? Miracles can happen.

I turned 30 and Puar turned 23 but we didn't really celebrate our birthdays much because we didn't want to believe we were that old already. We didn't feel that old.

During this time, I cut my hair. It wasn't my first haircut ever but it was the first time that I opted to keep my hair short. I know. Compared to everything else, a haircut is not a major event but a lot of people have asked me why I did this. Uh. All I'll say is that I was 30 and I'd had a relatively stressful life. So maybe it had something to do with grey hair. Or maybe it had something to do with me, Puar and a bubble gum commercial. (Note to self: cats and bubble gum do not mix.) Maybe it was both. Eh. No worries. Short hair is easier to take care of.

Vegeta came back to Earth at some point. He could have stayed out in space if he'd wanted to but apparently he missed having people to harass. Since all the Namek refugees were gone now, Vegeta moved into Capsule Corp. He probably wanted to protect the only place on Earth that could build him a spaceship. The rest of us were wary about this. Bulma and her parents were friends of the group. We were all a bit worried for their safety but we figured that the Briefs knew what they doing. As I've said before, Bulma and her parents are workaholics. They were hardly ever home. And when they WERE home then anymore they tended to have a large group of people, animals and robots that came with them. Bulmas parents were still happily providing housing for renters, homeless, strays, exchange students, foster kids and Capsule Corp employees that just wanted to live closer to their work. When the Briefs were home, it was a good-sized group. Whenever Bulma and her parents stepped out... Vegeta probably had the Capsule Corp mansion to himself. All the other residents were scared of him.

Not that Vegeta was at the mansion often either. He spent most of his time out training. Eventually he got the rest of us together and told us that we had better train as well. It took us a moment to realize that the way Vegeta had said it, indirectly he was asking for our help in the only way his pride would allow. Seeing Vegeta act afraid and kinda asking for our help - at first I thought he was lying to us. I wondered if it was a trap. Then Vegeta told us that Freezia wasn't dead. If he had claimed anything else then we might have still suspected him of putting on an act. With the mention of Freezia, Vegeta had Krillens support in a heartbeat. I'd never seen Krillen so anxious to fight.

As much as I hate Vegeta, I do have to give him some credit. Like my first Sensei always said - you've got to respect your enemies as well as your friends, that way you don't underestimate anyone. Vegeta had helped defend Krillen and Gohan on planet Namek. And he had helped to beat up Freezia. And even though Vegeta has the tendency to exaggerate his own skills, he does have a lot of fighting experience. There are certain people you never want to see serious. And, along that same line of thought, there are certain people that you never want to see frightened. Vegeta... As far as battle goes - it's not that easy to scare him. Obviously. He grew up ripping people to pieces and blowing planets to smithereens. So it takes quite a bit to make Vegeta afraid. And it takes even more than that to make him drop his pride enough to admit his fear.

We all reluctantly agreed to train more. Not because Vegeta had more or less told us to but because if Freezia was coming then the Earth was going to be endangered. We felt like we had to try to protect our world, again. We hoped that all the training and battle experience we'd gained since our last attempt to save the Earth would be useful to us.

Gohan, Chaozu and I were the only ones who were sick of fighting by this time. Gohan didn't show it as much though.

Bulmas father was already building another gravity room. Dr. Briefs hadn't intended this room to be used for training but had wanted it to conduct science experiments in, so we didn't find out about it until later. But Vegeta must have stumbled across the new gravity chamber, figured out what it was and taken over. So his training methods changed drastically. And even though Vegeta wanted help from all of us in the upcoming battles, he somehow completely failed to mention the gravity room to any of us. Maybe he didn't think we were strong enough to use the gravity chamber. Maybe he didn't want any of us getting THAT much stronger. I'd wild guess that he didn't trust us but I couldn't tell you. Seems like at least Gohan and Krillen should have earned his trust by then.

If Vegeta had stayed out in space, maybe Freezia and King Kold would never have come to Earth. I don't know. I'm under the impression that these villains were hunting Vegeta. Maybe I'm wrong though. Maybe Freezia and King Kold would have come to Earth anyway. Maybe they were after Gohan or Goku. Maybe they were just after Earth in general. We never found out.

The fateful day arrived. We could all sense Freezias ki as it approached our planet. We gathered near the landing place and waited. Bulma and Puar even came along until I reminded them of the danger and told them to leave. Bulma mentioned something about liking Freezia at this time but I think she was just trying to get on Vegetas nerves. Krillen took off, intending to greet Freezia with a few hundred ki blasts. Vegeta knocked him out of the sky and said that we should let Freezia come to us.

Freezia never came.

We should have been relieved but we didn't have the chance. I'll explain why after I take a break.

**ooxoo**


	19. Mixed Omens

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 19: Mixed Omens**

**S**orry I haven't worked on this for a while, I've been keeping busy. Puar had a family reunion.

While the reunion itself was nice and I was honored to have been invited, it was kind of bizarre. Puar has so many relatives! There had to have been at least five hundred small cats at the reunion and that was despite a couple branches of the family tree not being able to attend. Most of these cats could fly and speak human languages. Many of the younger cats also had some skill at shapeshifting. And as if that weren't enough... Quite a few of the cats had _adopted_ humans. Try to imagine the conversations, then. You know how people say things like: "This is my cat. Isn't he cute? Don't worry, he's friendly." Try to imagine what it would be like if the cat did the introductions, imagine the cat saying something like that about a person. So... Yea. The reunion was fine but I spent the whole event being affectionately referred to as _'Puars human' _by a bunch of little cats. It was just kind of odd.

The reunion lasted a week. When we got back home from that, I had a lot of stuff to catch up on which is why this project got ignored for a bit. I'm mostly caught up now. Guess it's time to continue.

Okay. Last time I told you about how everyone - minus Goku and Yajirobe - had gathered to wait for Freezia to arrive on Earth. We had picked the battlefield and we were going to let Freezia come to us. But he never came. We sensed this massive unfamiliar ki arrive near the area where Freezia had landed. So we went to see what was going on. By the time we could see the spacepods, Freezia and his goons had been sliced into pieces. An energy blast reduced the pieces to dust. King Kold suffered the same slice-n-toast fate.

Uhm. Yea. King Kold. Freezias Dad. Is it just me or is that kind of ironic? Freezia, the intergalatic tyrant and evil monster. Freezia, with a reputation for conquering worlds and enslaving, torturing or killing just about any creature that he crossed paths with. Freezia, strong enough to scare the Saiyans. Strong enough to be the reason why there aren't more Saiyans. But he has to get his Daddy to come to Earth with him. What the heck, you know? So whatever species Freezia is - he was cruel to everything in the universe yet he had a caring family? The evil lizards from outer space were sincerely nice to each other but nobody else? It's strange to contemplate and not always in a good way. King Kold must have been supportive of his son, he'd cared enough to travel across space and visit Earth. He had no idea who we were but he'd been willing to risk the potential danger in order to help Freezia seek revenge for the damages done. So what this ultimately means, I can't help but notice... Is that the evil lizard monster from outer space had better parents than I did. That kind of hurts.

Back on track. There was this young man with a sword. We'd never seen him before and that disturbed every single one of us. Vegeta, Piccolo, Gohan, Krillen, Tenshinhan, Chaozu and I - we had thought that between us, we knew every warrior on Earth that was capable of energy blasts.

The stranger was Trunks. He wouldn't introduce himself until later. He just looked at all of us as if we were ghosts. Then he announced that he was going to go meet Goku. He invited us to come along.

Yea, as you can imagine we had all sorts of questions and little mental alarms going off. How had this kid known about Freezia? Who had taught him to fight? How did he know about Goku?

Trunks was very polite to us - the kid had brought a capsulized fridge with him just so that he could offer us sodas - but he didn't answer any of our questions. Vegeta decided that the kid was from space. We'd caught a glimpse of Trunks with golden hair earlier, when he'd been ridding the Earth of Freezia. Vegeta took this as proof that the kid was a Super Saiyan. Thus the first theory we had was that maybe Trunks was a Saiyan from space that had somehow survived the Saiyan planet being destroyed 27 years ago. Vegeta concluded that Trunks must have learned about Freezia destroying the Saiyan home planet and so Trunks had chased Freezia to Earth for revenge purposes, crossing paths with Goku at some point.

I almost believed that theory. It was very plausible, after all. Would have explained so much. Except... Well. Certain details were jumping out at me. For example - Trunks was wearing a Capsule Corp jacket. Would a Saiyan from space have any idea what Capsule Corp was? No. I didn't think so either. And the distinctive purple hair... Back when she'd been 16, Bulma'd had purplish hair. And why had Trunks called Goku _'Goku'_? I mean, think about that. Every true-blue Saiyan from space that we'd encountered had called Goku _'Kakarotto'._

Yea. There were enough clues for me to begin putting the pieces together. But I didn't mention this to anyone. Honestly, I didn't want to admit what I was figuring out to anyone - myself included. Because Trunks hadn't told us who his parents were. So I felt the topic must be a sore spot and decided not to bring the subject up. Also, sometimes silence is wise. Respect for privacy aside, family matters were something that I didn't care to make public guesses about. So I kept quiet.

Goku, who had been absent for the last two years, arrived on Earth just exactly as Trunks had predicted. Thankfully, Goku was his regular cheerful and somewhat dazed self. Much to our relief the Super Saiyan transformation hadn't affected his memory. He recognized us and was glad to finally be home. Goku apologized for not getting to Earth sooner - he'd been chasing Freezia, apparently - and was rather surprised to hear that Freezia was already dead. Goku was slightly less surprised that we were all there to meet him. He probably thought that we'd all just sensed his ki and flown over. What surprised him, I suppose, was to find out that we'd been waiting at the landing site long before his ki could have been detected on Earth. He wondered how we'd figured out precisely when and where he was going to land. He also had no idea who Trunks was.

I don't know how someone travels time but... The idea was kind of occurring to me. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, eh?

Trunks and Goku flew off to have a chat in private. The rest of us were left behind, to wait for their return. We didn't have to see Goku or Trunks to feel their power levels rapidly increase. Gohan said it felt like his dad was going Super Saiyan again and from the way his ki jumped, I assume that Trunks did the same. So in case we hadn't believed Vegeta earlier, we had that much more confirmation about Trunks species. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Trunks was part Saiyan.

Eventually Trunks left and Goku came back to us. The group talked for a bit. Goku had become stronger than ever and had learned some new techniques. He demonstrated that he could teleport. Great. As if he wasn't dangerous enough before. Mr. I-can-blow-up-planets was now capable of teleporting. Wonderful. What next? Eesh.

The last thing Goku said before he left was to Bulma. She and Puar were STILL hanging around the battlefield. _Augh. _Anyway. Goku told Bulma to have a healthy baby. That was the final proverbial nail in the coffin, so to speak. We had all figured out that Trunks was definitely Saiyan by then. So if Bulma was his mother then nobody had to say who his father was. That part wasn't even terribly surprising.

What was really bugging me with all this... I hate to say it but Bulma honestly doesn't strike me as parent material. You know? Bulma was 30 years old. Yes, she's beautiful and smart. However she's also a workaholic, a perfectionist and rather set in her routines. She's used to getting her way and being able to do what she wants. She's accustomed to spending days and weeks at a time on projects. She's excellent with machines but she's not so great when it comes to taking care of live creatures. None of her former houseplants had survived for more than a week. Most of her former pets had either escaped or been rescued by her parents. Bulma hadn't ever been able to make time for any of her so-called former boyfriends - me included. So a child... That's a major life change and I just couldn't imagine Bulma dealing with it very well.

And for the record, Vegeta didn't exactly strike me as being parent material either.

Yea. I know. Why should I care? Eh. I just do. Much as I might like to ignore it, the fact of the matter is that I have no idea who my parents are or what my heritage is and that all things considered, I'm probably lucky to have survived being abandoned in the desert. It's one of those things... I can live with what happened to me. But that doesn't mean that I want to see it happen to anyone else.

I began to wonder if Trunks had been abandoned by his parents. Maybe that's why he hadn't mentioned the subject of family. Or perhaps he'd been raised in a daycare. I dunno. Guess I'm kinda strange that way. I wasn't jealous of the relationship, I was concerned for the child. And the implications... How was I supposed to remain friends with Bulma if she was destined to become a lousy mom?

Anyway. Goku told her to have a healthy kid. This confused almost everyone, including Bulma. Vegeta seemed to be in denial. Although mostly, he was just angry that someone else had gone Super Saiyan before him. I could've died. Of course, I'd figured it out by then and I had questions. What I wanted to know... There was no graceful way of asking. So I just said what was on my mind. Something about getting married and settling down. Because I had to see how Bulma reacted to those ideas.

She mostly ignored me.

Ow.

I was accustomed to Bulma mostly ignoring me. What hurt was the way she acted. She made it seem like she was gonna have the kid without getting married or settling down. Bulma had to have known who the stranger had been - she's a genius for crying out loud. No doubt she had noticed the Capsule Corp jacket and the purple hair. But perhaps she was in denial at the time. I really don't know what she was thinking. It worried me. I had this mental image of Bulma becoming a rather bitter single parent. It's just not the kind of situation that you want to imagine one of your friends getting into.

Then Piccolo told us that we needed to train again. He explained that he had overheard the conversation Goku'd had with Trunks and that we should expect some new bad guys to start trashing the planet in about three years. When we all parted ways, that news is what hung in our minds.

If you were to summarize my life up to this point, it would be thirty-one years of training. Yes. There were a few fun moments, a handful of actual battles and a couple times when I was too injured to train. Basically though my entire life had just been one huge training session. Even when I was dead, what was I doing? Yep. Training. The pattern did kinda stick out to me. I realized that I had done all this training and... For what? So that I could get trampled in battles by warriors who had been born more powerful than me? Is that what my life was building up to?

It seemed that way sometimes and I resented that. I'm not a coward, I'm not some human weakling but there's just a point where enough is enough. I was completely sick of fighting. I didn't feel like I was really needed at battles anymore. Seriously, the last actual battle - outside of a tournament - where I felt like I'd done any good was against Boss Rabbit.

So I deliberately didn't plan to train much. Why kill myself doing a bunch of training when that's never made much difference for me? In retrospect it seems like the more I trained, the worse I'd gotten beaten up. This new pending danger that we'd been warned of, I expected that Goku or Gohan would probably end up saving us. I figured that if I went to the battle at all - and I hoped that I wouldn't have to - then I was probably going to get stomped anyway. So why bother?

Like I said, I had planned not to train. Those were my plans. But someone else had plans as well.

I never used to be a heavy sleeper. Back when I was a desert bandit, I had to be cautious. I'd wake up at every little noise. However in the city, if you don't learn to tune out all the noises then you never get any sleep.

Early one morning, someone was shaking my shoulder and telling me to wake up. At first I thought it was part of a bad dream. So I ignored it. Then, when I was awake enough for the ki signature to register, I wondered if something was horribly wrong. I was expecting to hear bad news. Concerned but still yawning, I kinda sat up and asked Goku what the heck he'd woken me up at two am for.

Yep. Mr. Naive had teleported into my house. He wanted to go train.

"Goku!" I protested, "It's two am!"

"Yea, I know." He grinned sheepishly, "I overslept."

Someone shoot me. Oh wait, I'm bulletproof. Nevermind.

There was a cute moment where a certain grey furball finally woke up. Puar was groggy so she didn't realize who Goku was until after she'd attacked him. She had shifted into a mountain lion and pounced fast enough that Goku was caught off guard. The result... Goku was standing there, completely unharmed, with this confused grey mountain lion hanging off him. Puar apologized and went back to her true form as soon as she realized what she'd done. Goku said that it was okay, he was used to being attacked. He was actually impressed by Puars strength and suggested that maybe Puar should train with us. Puar and I both took that as a bad joke since Puar dislikes fighting even more than I do.

Still... It's hard to argue with someone when they're at least ten times more powerful than you and capable of teleporting. Goku didn't give me a chance to decline training. I was in the middle of a barren wasteland in my baseball uniform before I knew what was going on.

Er. Yea. Sometimes I slept in the baseball uniform. Usually when I either had to get up early for work or had come home late from work. Remember - it's lot more than just baseball. There are the media interviews, volunteer work and all that kind of thing. I was encouraged to stay in my uniform for these other activities because it promoted the team and made me more recognizable. Do you recall that I've mentioned how half my closet is orange fighting gis? Well. The other half is mostly baseball uniforms.

I woke up very quickly because it was freezing outside. I managed to avoid being killed for long enough to figure out why Goku had insisted on training with me. He thought Bulma and I were still a couple. Training with me was going to be Gokus not-so-subtle way of trying to keep Bulma and I apart. Apparently Goku had reasons for wanting to ensure the existence of Trunks. Once everything had been explained - that there was absolutely nothing to worry about as far as me being in love with Bulma - Goku teleported me back home. Puar was on the phone when we returned, she'd woken up Gohan and had been trying to convince him to find us. Thankfully, Gohan was too sleepy to understand so Puar told him to go back to bed and hung up.

After that incident, the next three years went by relatively peacefully.

Puar and I just did the usual type of stuff. Attending baseball games, traveling to and from baseball games, volunteer work and going to celebrity parties with the team - all that.

Oh... Uhm. I might have been suicidal once or twice. I'm over that now but there were days when life just seemed pointless. Just a series of fights. If you win one then there's another and another and another. You're bound to lose eventually. And while I felt honorbound to show up at the pending battles because no doubt my friends would be there, risking their lives - I really didn't want to be part of this anymore. Once I even managed to break into Capsule Corp at night and sneak into the gravity room. Figured that would be relatively fast and clean way to die. Couldn't quite bring myself to go through with it though.

Anyway. Vegeta and Bulma became parents during this time. Vegeta was age 34, Bulma was 33, they weren't married and I have to doubt that they had planned on having a kid. Trunks was born in 766 A.D. None of us were surprised - due to future Trunks having visited us - but we were all kind of wary.

I'm not the only orphan of this group and I'm not the only one who had concluded that future Trunks probably hadn't mentioned his parents for darker reasons. We were all prepared to beat Vegeta to a pulp if he so much as raised a finger against the kid. Goku included. Of course we didn't say as much, it wasn't necessary. We made the threat clear without words. I was right, too and I really wish that I hadn't been. Bulma - at first, she was a lousy mom. She didn't want to take care of Trunks. She felt a kid would just get in the way of her ambitions. And Vegeta... Well. Maybe it's traditional for Saiyan fathers to be jerks that ignore their offspring. I don't know. They weren't a happy family.

You're wondering how I can be so informed on this, right? Well. Bulma continued to work at Capsule Corp. She left Trunks with her parents but they are workaholics too. Since Vegeta was always out training, Bulmas parents started to look for a babysitter. The problem was simple - Trunks is part Saiyan. He's too strong to play with normal kids and even too strong for most regular adults to keep under control.

My phone number was still in the phone book. So for about the first year of his life, Trunks was raised by his grandparents and a group of babysitters which included Puar and I. Tenshinhan and Chaozu - we'd finally talked them into getting a phone with an answering machine - might have also watched Trunks on occasion. Gohan wasn't a babysitter because he spent most of his time in school or training. ChiChi wasn't a babysitter because she was busy with her own life, she invested a lot of her time into caring for her aging father and the family castle.

Can I pause for moment and say that kids are awesome?

I know that I _can_ have kids but anymore, I feel rather strongly like maybe I _shouldn't_. Because what could I give them? I don't know my birth parents, I don't know my familys medical history. There is so much information that people take for granted that I just don't have. Goku - he never met his folks, he got to grow up on a whole separate planet from them but he STILL knows more about his family than I do. Vegeta, we believe, has outlived all of his immediate relatives but at least he knew them. Me? I was abandoned in the desert. I never knew the people responsible for my existence. If I had kids... They wouldn't have grandparents from me. They wouldn't easily be able to learn about their ancestry or their nationality or their inherited health risks. They'd be missing out. So I had concluded - back around the same time that I decided that marriage really wasn't for me - that it would be insensitive and irresponsible for me to have kids. But I'm really glad that I got to be a babysitter. Because kids are awesome. The things they say and do... They are always taking me by surprise. Even before he was speaking, Trunks could make me laugh.

Most electronics do not react well to my presence but when Trunks started coming over, I found a camera that would function in spite of me. I became an amatuer photographer. I just wanted to capture all the moments that I knew Trunks wouldn't remember by adulthood. I started a photo albumn and didn't plan to give it to him until after he was done with high school. It's maybe not the most impressive gift to plan but... It was important to me. Perhaps I can appreciate the value more because I don't have a photo albumn of my childhood.

Goku might have watched Trunks a couple times but I have to doubt it. Babysitting Trunks would have been too stressful of an activity for Goku. Piccolo had mentioned the heart disease to us. So everyday for most of these three years, Krillen made a point of dragging Goku off to do nice peaceful stuff like fishing. Because Krillen didn't want Goku to strain his heart. Same for Piccolo, actually. He was hanging around and trying to keep Goku out of trouble as well. Most of Piccolos efforts failed miserably. Imagine Goku trying to meditate by a waterfall, the poor guy was bored to death. For those who haven't guessed: Goku + bored = danger.

Despite all of us kind of discouraging it, Goku did manage to have some adventures. He tried to learn how to drive. Somehow Piccolo got conned into taking driving lessons as well. I found out about this because it was on the news - Piccolo and Goku had caused a minor road disaster. Luckily no one was seriously injured but in the end, Goku and Piccolo didn't get their drivers licenses.

Puar, Oolong, Krillen, Yajirobe, Master Roshi, Bulma and I all knew how to drive. Any one of us could have offered to help but instead - for our own safety - I think most of us just offered to teach ChiChi how to drive. ChiChi declined. She'd decided that driving wasn't actually all that important since her family didn't have a car. Besides, she could still ride on Nimbus the cloud and she felt Nimbus was probably safer than a car anyway. So for anyone out there who is imagining ChiChi as evil - you're wrong. ChiChi has not always been an optimist and her actions have not always been kind but she has apparently remained pure of heart. She wouldn't still be able to ride Nimbus, if that had changed.

Oh and yea, guess what? The 24th Tenkaichi Budoukai took place. It was 11 years late but it finally happened. None of us participated since we had other things to deal with. Mr. Satan - the guy who'd bought all the rights to the tournament - won. Go figure.

If you have a zeni - or any kind of paper money - in your pocket then take it out, hold it up, strike a pose if you want and then put the money back in your pocket. Tada. You've just done basically what Mr. Satan did at the 24th Tenkaichi Budoukai. He'd paid for the tournament and he won the tournament. Granted it took some guts and skill to pull the trick off but still - he won his own money. Isn't that laughable? That someone would go to all the trouble of fighting in a tournament just to win something they already had... Ah well, they say rich people are allowed to be eccentric.

In truth, Mister Satan is probably stronger than the average person. He can rip phone books in half easily and can bench press a school bus. But he's more of a circus act than a serious fighter. It's just the way he behaves. His biggest weakness is that he doesn't have the brains to quit when he's ahead.

Every serious fighter on the planet knew that Mr. Satan never should have won the 24th Tenkaichi Budoukai for one simple reason: Goku. Remember? Goku had won the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai. Goku should have been the defending champion at the 24th. However between his own health being at risk, family issues and the world on the brink of being seriously endangered - Goku didn't make it to the tournament to defend his title. I doubt that Goku regrets this. He had earned the title of World Champion and he was proud of it but... At the time, I think Goku was glad to take a break from the tournament. He'd won before and earning the prize was more fun than defending it. In his own mind... Goku might not have considered the 24th Budoukai to be a challenge worth his attention. Although if Krillen or Tenshinhan or any of us had entered the tournament then perhaps Goku would have entered as well.

**ooxoo**


	20. Another day, another disaster

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 20: Another day, another disaster**

**O**n May 12th 767 A.D. we all gathered on an island outside of South Capital City. Goku, Gohan, Piccolo, Tenshinhan, Krillen and I. Chaozu, Vegeta and Yajirobe weren't there but Bulma was. Bulma insisted that if the world was going to end anyway then she might as well watch. (sarcasm) How sweet of her to be so optimistic, hrm? How nice and considerate of her to have so much confidence in our abilities. (end sarcasm) Eh. Privately I agreed with her. But it's never a great feeling to have skills that you've worked long and hard for openly discredited. For the sake of morale, she could have at least _pretended_ that we had a chance.

Bulma had brought baby Trunks with her. She introduced him to the rest of group - Gohan mostly, I think. Someone asked if Trunks was my kid. I said no and walked off. I probably should have said that Trunks was practically my kid. But I'd had a recent argument with Bulma regarding her lack of parenting skills. We were still mad at each other from that. To make a long story short, I had refused to babysit anymore. For two reasons. First, I had my own life and it was a busy one. Second, I thought - hoped - that if Bulma was forced to spend more time with her son then maybe she'd become a better parent.

I was age 34 at this gathering. Tenshinhan and Bulma were also each 34. Krillen was 31, Goku was 30 and Gohan was 10. Trunks was just over a year old. We'd known where and when to gather to wait for the appearance of the androids because future Trunks had given us that much information.

Yajirobe did eventually join us. He dropped by to leave us with some senzu beans in case we needed them later. Then he left. I really don't blame him. Yajirobe is samurai. Like most samurai, his training has included all kinds of marital arts but with a very strong preference for fighting with weapons. Yajirobe can fight without his katana - he'd just really rather not. And that's why he left. He must have doubted that his sword attacks would be effective on robots. Chaozu was staying out of this battle for similar reasons, he expected that androids would be immune to his psychic attacks.

So Yajirobe and Chaozu were part of our back up this way. If we had all gotten slaughtered then they would have still been alive to figure out how to wish us back to life. Pessimistic thinking, I know, but the idea had occurred to us. Piccolo didn't think we had a chance against the androids, Goku thought we might be able to beat them and the rest of us weren't really sure.

After waiting a while, I was beginning to think the androids wouldn't come. Wishful thinking on my part. As Yajirobe was leaving, something blew his aircar right out of the sky. We were all startled by the explosion - no one more than Yajirobe, I suppose. Gohan took off to see if he was okay.

The puzzle with androids is twofold. First, our ki had no real effect on them. It's strange. Because without even powering up, I can make lights flicker just by walking through a room - remember? And Goku can accidentally reset gravity rooms. And Gohan probably just has to frown at an electrical appliance to make it short circuit. And yet the androids, who were full of computer chips and electrical parts, weren't affected. Secondly - despite their immense power, the androids didn't have ki. So the androids could sense our energy signatures but we couldn't detect them. As I write this now, I can't help but pause and wonder if these two problems were connected. The androids must have had some fairly serious shielding devices to protect their internal computers. After all, they were able to withstand all the energy that an angry Saiyan could generate. So maybe the shielding devices are what prevented us from being able to sense their ki.

We saw the androids flying towards the city from a distance but as soon as we lost sight of them, we had no idea where they were. Nevertheless, we gave chase. We left Bulma and baby Trunks on the island. We reached the city and decided to split up to look for the androids. Splitting up was an utterly stupid decision on our part. Very risky. At the time, though, we thought that we'd cover more ground that way. Understand that we wanted to find those androids as fast as possible - before they had the chance to hurt too many other people.

Somehow I ended up on my own. Everyone else had paired off. Trust my luck... There I am, alone and then I end up flying over the one part of the city that was rapidly becoming a disaster area. I heard people screaming. Inwardly, I hoped that the cause of the screams was a car accident or something like that.

What I saw next was an awful sight that is going haunt me for the rest of my life no matter how much I try to forget. It was just chilling. There was this one dead guy with his head - just his head, mind you and the eyes were open - punched through the roof of his car. He was probably on his way to work. Heck, maybe he was on his way home from work. And... He gets killed like that. For no reason. There were other bodies as well - some charred, most chopped into pieces and others in twisted poses.

It was all I could do to not be sick.

I'll be honest. I was as scared as the people screaming. Because I knew that I couldn't really protect them. How was I supposed to defend anybody from an enemy that I couldn't even detect? The androids had already demonstrated that they had long-range attacks, they could have blown someone away right in front of me. I didn't want to watch a bunch of innocent people die. It's the helpless wanting-to-run-away-but-where-can-you-go feeling. Nowhere was safe, not for me or for anyone else.

Reluctantly, I landed. I couldn't just fly away from the terrified people below. Anyone that could have is either heartless or a survivalist. I tried to seem calm and authoritative (and failed miserably, I'm sure) in order to attempt to give the impression that things were under control. There were a lot of people down there. If they panicked then they would probably just hurt each other while trying to flee. So I didn't want them to panic even though on the inside, I was.

The androids were hovering right over me. The truth is that I didn't know they were there until they landed behind me. One of the androids was an old guy and the other was disturbingly familiar. 19, he was designed to look like a certain deceased emperor. Anyway. The androids I confronted showed zero remorse for their actions, in fact they seemed to be enjoying themselves. They happily took credit for murdering all the people in the area that were dead. Most of my brain was telling me to get out of there but I couldn't risk it. If I could have been a hundred percent sure that the androids would have followed me then yes, I would have left. In a heartbeat. I would have gladly flown off and lured the androids as far away from the city as possible. But I doubted that the androids would chase me. If I had left... They would have just stayed behind and killed the survivors of their earlier attacks. So I stayed put, more or less against my will.

I had time to recognize the insignia of the Red Ribbon Army before one of the androids recognized me and stepped forward. Then everything gets blurry. Not even a very painful blur, I was too numb to feel much. I'm not exactly sure how I managed to stay alive with a hole through my midsection. Seems like I should have bled to death.

The androids were draining my energy and it was slowly killing me. I thought about the weirdest things while I was dying. Wondered if I had left the porch light on at home and meaningless incoherent little stuff like that. For some unknown reason, I was retained enough awareness to sense energy signatures. I remember knowing that the other warriors were heading towards me - they must have noticed my ki taking a dive. Krillen and Goku were the closest to my location but still I didn't think that they'd reach me in time to find more than a corpse. I wondered if they would be upset with me for not training more often. Then I finally lost consciousness.

I don't know how long I was out but I was mildly surprised to regain semi-consciousness at all. I just kinda vaguely remember hearing Krillen, Yajirobe and Gohan telling me that I had to wake up now. Bulma was there too, I think. I'm not sure why we had left the senzu beans with her. Anyway. Someone forced one of the senzu down my throat which restored all my energy and patched up the hole in my midsection. Unfortunately, it also got rid of the numbness a bit too quickly. There were a few seconds where all the pain came crashing down on me before fading out of existence.

Once I had recovered from that, my main concern was that we wouldn't get back to Goku and the others in time to warn them about the androids ability to drain energy. I don't know why I felt the need to warn anyone. Goku and Krillen didn't need to be warned. They had witnessed the androids demonstrating their life-draining talents on me. Must not have been thinking very clearly. As I've said before, the senzu beans can heal your physical wounds but full mental and emotional recovery - that takes time. It had not been a good day for me. I was still a bit dazed. But if I had felt that Goku had stood a chance against that energy-draining technique then I wouldn't have gone back to the battle.

Krillen and Gohan accompanied me. I must have acted far more composed than I felt, they seemed to be surprised by how well I was doing. Krillen brought the senzu beans. We left Yajirobe, baby Trunks and Bulma behind with instructions that they should get as far away from the city as possible.

We arrived too late. Goku was getting the life beaten out of him by one of the androids. Literally. He was in Super Saiyan mode and still getting pulverized. Tenshinhan and Piccolo were also there but, much to their frustration, they had to stay out of the battle in order to give Goku a fighting chance. If they had interfered then both of the androids would have just killed Goku outright.

Vegeta, age 35, finally caught up to the rest of us. He made a fashionably late entrance into the battle by showing that he'd achieved Super Saiyan. While Vegeta was smacking the androids around, we managed to drag Goku away from the battle. We gave Goku a senzu bean. It would be wrong to say that nothing happened. With senzu, something always happens. Goku had earned some bruises and fractures and scratches from his battle. With the senzu, most of those minor injuries were healed. Not all of them though. And Goku didn't seem to recover any energy. And he was still having trouble breathing. Piccolo said aloud what the rest of us were thinking - it was the heart disease. And Goku had left the medicine at his home.

Well, I'd been wanting an excuse to leave... I saw this as a chance to step down with honor. I offered to escort Goku home so that he could get his medicine. You know, almost being killed once in a day is more than enough.

I couldn't fly Goku home as fast as I would have liked to for two reasons: weight and memory.

Goku is in the habit of wearing clothes that weigh abnormally large amounts. His wrist bands alone probably weigh more than some cars. So yea, he is not easy to carry. If Goku hadn't been able power up enough to fly a little bit, I probably wouldn't have been able to move him at all. In truth, I wasn't really carrying him that much. Goku was flying and I was just doing the steering.

This is why memory is important. Goku was drifting in and out of consciousness. There were moments when he didn't recognize me. Nevermind androids, very little in the universe is as scary as having someone that you've known for the past eighteen years completely forget who you are. I was able to convince Goku that I was a friend of his. So he didn't attack me but he acted like he didn't totally trust me either. That kept my nerves on edge. It got worse as we continued flying. There were moments when Goku seemed to forget his own identity and at one point he tried to escape. If he hadn't been in so much pain, he would have been successful.

It was a bit of a comfort when I sensed Gohan following us at a distance. A bit alarming too. I was anxious to know why Gohan had left the battle. Had he been hurt or did he somehow realize that his father was being difficult? Or were the androids following me, was Gohan chasing them? That last possibility really bugged me for the simple reason that I didn't want to be leading the androids straight to Gokus house.

Chaozu and Tenshinhan are telepaths. I'd spent just over a year around both of them - on Kamis Lookout and then on King Kais world - so thankfully I'd picked up a bit of mindspeak. And guess who else had been on Kamis Lookout to learn it as well? Right. Yajirobe. He telepathically informed me that he and Gohan were escorting Bulma and baby Trunks home to Capsule Corp. Yajirobe said not to worry about the androids because Vegeta had already killed one of them and the rest of the group was currently hunting down the second android.

Even though I basically hated Vegeta, I was kind of mentally cheering for him at that time. He could be an arrogant jerk but he was useful to have around. Even if he was defending the world for all the wrong reasons - he was, at least, still defending the world. It's hard not to appreciate that.

Goku was in a haze when we finally arrived at his home. Which is a good thing, I guess, because I don't know how ChiChi would have reacted if Goku had been fully conscious yet unable to recognize her. ChiChi and I gave Goku the medicine - with only minor resistance from Goku once we had assured him that no needles were involved. We left Goku on his bed, he curled up in the middle and growled at us like he was an injured wild animal until he fell asleep. Then we were able to put some blankets over him because he'd started shaking visibly, as if he were very cold.

Mostly I stayed at the Son house because I was too exhausted - emotionally as well as physically - to go anywhere else. But I had also decided that I'd stay in case Goku tried to escape or do anything else that would ultimately just be harmful to his health. You know, what if Goku had started to fire off random attacks?

I hoped that Gohan would catch up with us soon. He did. When he arrived home, Gohan immediately went to check on his father. Then he spent a while comforting his mother. He even went out of his way to thank me for helping his dad to get home. The kid was ten but he rarely acted his age. It's kind of messed up actually. I consider Goku to be sort of like a younger brother but Gohan, I almost think of him as an equal in the sense of being someone my age or older. Maybe it's because Gohans first two senseis were Piccolo and Krillen. Maybe it's because Gohan has had a rough life. Maybe it's just because he studied so much. Perhaps all of the above. Whatever the reason, Gohan has always come off as serious and a bit too mature.

**ooxoo**


	21. Too many monsters

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 21: Too many monsters**

**G**ohan told me what was going on in the battles. I was told that future Trunks had returned. Strangely enough, future Trunks didn't recognize the two androids that had almost killed Goku, Yajirobe and I. Which meant - oh joy - there were more androids.

Apparently future Trunks, Piccolo, Krillen, Tenshinhan and Vegeta were out hunting for androids. But there was a catch. Future Trunks claimed that the androids had been designed for the sole purpose of killing Goku. So Gohan wanted me to stick around in case any of the androids came to his house. He made me promise to get his parents out of there if a battle started. Gohan thought he could hold out for long enough on his own to buy the other warriors time to arrive. Amazing, isn't it? Goku hadn't always been around and ChiChi hadn't always been easy to get along with yet Gohan was willing to risk himself for his parents like that.

I wanted to argue with the plan but I couldn't. I wanted to tell Gohan that he was just a kid, he should be the one getting away from the battle with his parents and I should be the one that was live bait for the androids. But...he was right. Even though he doubted himself sometimes, Gohan knew exactly what he was capable of. So if Gohan thought that he could hold off the androids then he probably could. That's all there is to it.

Do you realize how strong this makes Gohan? He'd seen one of the androids beating up his father. He'd watched Super Saiyan Vegeta trading blows with one of them. And yet it didn't intimidate him. Not at all. Gohan thought that he could hold out against more than one android on his own. I don't know when exactly Gohan officially reached the Super Saiyan level but sometimes I wonder if he'd reached the level before he was ten, without telling anyone. Or maybe he was just equal to Super Saiyan strength before he went Super Saiyan. I really don't know but it's kind of unnerving that any one person could have that sort of power.

ChiChi, Gohan and I spent a few hours listening to news reports on the radio and keeping a watchful vigil over Goku. Mostly the latter. Because with Gohan and Goku both at home, the radio - and most of their other appliances - went on the fritz. Goku seemed to be having nightmares. There were a few moments where I was convinced that the guy could blow things up while asleep. The medicine didn't appear to be having much effect.

Krillen and future Trunks arrived. They said that we had to move Goku to a safer location. Immediately. They thought we were easy targets at the Son House since there were three super strong evil androids out there now. Super strong? Wait, you mean the ones that almost killed me were the WEAK androids?! Oh wonderful...

Yea. I know. I should have been accustomed to the concept of our enemies always getting stronger. It's just that usually we had finished dealing with one enemy before the next enemy shows up. And you know, if I'm starting to feel absolutely useless at battles more often - what does that mean for the 'normal' people that I'm supposed to be helping to defend?

Don't get me wrong. I'm certainly not the strongest guy on the planet. But just for comparison, the average power level for buff people is between 2 and 5. The average for world-class martial artists is probably around 110. My power level is in the thousands. What I'm getting at is that with that kind power there is an obligation. You feel the need to defend everyone because they can't defend themselves and the simple fact is that there's a lot at stake. If these androids had defeated me so easily - if they had stomped Goku so easily - gah. 'Average' people were just going to be massacred. You have no idea how much guilt I _still_ carry around every day because of that. If I had just been able to defeat those two androids when I first saw them... All the lives it could have saved in the long run...

We strapped Goku to his bed - for his safety as well as ours - then carried the bed out of the house and onto a plane. We headed over to the Kame House. I don't think that was originally our intended destination. I think we'd planned just to stop there to pick up Master Roshi (you know things are getting rough when we ask him to come out of retirement), Tenshinhan and Chaozu.

On the way over to the Kame House I was informed that future Trunks, Tenshinhan, Piccolo and Vegeta had each had near-death experiences today as well, courtesy of two different androids. Krillen - who'd just so happened to still have the senzu beans - had somehow avoided being seriously injured at that battle. He didn't want to talk about how he'd kept his health. He just mentioned that he was glad there had been enough senzu left to heal everyone up. Once the group had recovered, Krillen and future Trunks had come straight over to the Son house to warn us. Tenshinhan had headed for the Kame House to warn the people there. Krillen remarked that Vegeta had gone off to vent his anger. Piccolo had also flown off and would probably try to fuse with Kami. Piccolo hadn't actually told us what his plans were but by then we did know that fusion was an option for him.

Future Trunks was really quiet this whole time. Can you blame him? As weird of a day as it had been for me, I think it must have been about ten thousand times weirder for him. He was watching history start to kind of repeat itself.

Then things got stranger. Of course. They always do, don't they? You know how the saying goes - if anything can go wrong, it will.

There was a phone in the plane. It rang. Krillen answered it but the call was for Trunks. The rest of us in the plane only heard Trunks side of the conversation but we heard enough to know he was talking to Bulma and that something had happened. Trunks expression was worth a million words - disbelief and confusion mostly. The plane also had a fax machine (definitely a Capsule Corp plane...) so Bulma sent a fax. Krillen handed it to Trunks and Trunks was in shock. He said the picture that Bulma had sent looked like his time machine. Which didn't make any sense because he HAD his time machine with him, in a capsule in his pocket.

Needless to say, I wasn't the only one that had a very bad feeling about this.

Trunks left the plane to go investigate. Gohan, despite protests from his mother, left the plane with Trunks.

The rest of us reached the Kame House and decided to stay there because the group was too scattered to go into hiding efficiently. Vegeta, Yajirobe, Gohan, future Trunks and Piccolo were all off doing their own things. If the rest of us had really wanted to go into hiding, they might have never been able to find us. (or at least, not in time to do us any good...) So we carried Goku - with the bed and all - into the Kame House.

Tenshinhan and Chaozu left the Kame House soon after we'd arrived there. They said they were going to train but I was hesitant to believe that. Maybe they were going to look for the dragonballs, I don't know. But training... An excuse like that didn't make any sense to me. What good was a few extra hours of training going to do? Turns out the excuse was a valid one. Chaozu explained this to me later. Tenshinhan was trying to get the hang of multiple kaioken. (You know, kaioken times five or something like that.) Guess Tenshinhan still had enough pride that using a plain old kaioken wasn't good enough for him. He wanted to be sure that he could use a higher level of the technique than Goku ever had, otherwise he wouldn't use it at all.

So at the Kame House it was Oolong, Master Roshi, Umigame, ChiChi, Goku, Krillen and I. Puar wasn't there at first but she arrived later. Since we couldn't detect the androids, we turned on the tv - Roshi had gotten his sister to enchant most of his appliances so that they wouldn't explode as easily when all of us were there - and watched the news. We felt that the news reports might end up being the only warning we had about the androids location. Like I said already, the group was scattered out. Krillen, Master Roshi and I stayed at the Kame House and saw ourselves as the last line of defense. We hoped that at least one of the others would find and defeat the androids before the androids made it to us.

To our surprise and dismay, the androids weren't even mentioned in the headlines very much. Instead there was a breaking news story about a town where people were abruptly vanishing. All that had been found of these missing people were their clothes. So on the news it was a bunch of camera shots of torn clothes lying on the ground. I was quietly praying to Kami to please let this not be true. Let this be a hoax - the result of some bored news reporter with bad timing that had invented the story to boost ratings.

It wasn't a hoax. Gohan and future Trunks arrived at the Kame House in time to watch the end of the news with us. They were horrified. Because the town where people were vanishing wasn't all that far away from the abandoned time machine. Gohan reported that they had found some evidence of a monster at the site.

Great. That's just what we needed. Another monster on the loose. Oi.

I felt nostalgic. I missed being young, when my biggest worry had been stuff like finding enough drinkable water to get by. I missed Pilaf - the ambitious, corny and harmless type of villain. The sort of crook that you didn't need warriors, much less Saiyans or Super Saiyans, to defeat. I missed the good old days, when the planet hadn't been seriously endangered every couple years. But missing something isn't enough to bring it back.

Our main concern was that this new monster was like the androids, it had no ki signature. At first we couldn't sense it. That changed. It was odd because we didn't feel a singular massive ki. Instead we felt several powerful energy signatures clustered together and all of them were familiar. Do you have any idea how creepy it is to know that somewhere out there, a man-eating monster is mimicking your ki? And that this monster must also be mimicking the ki of people you know... We were temporarily confused about the location of several of our friends. We sensed two each of Tenshinhan, Piccolo and Vegeta. For about half a second, we weren't sure which one was the real one. The double ki trick didn't throw us for long though. The monster was projecting all our kis from the same location so we quickly concluded that the signatures in the cluster were the false ones. This was confirmed when energies like Freezias joined the cluster.

Krillen was seriously peeved and future Trunks was alarmed. They both took off to confront this new monster. Gohan thought about going with them. However Gohan realized that the androids were still out there and so he stuck around the Kame House, intent on defending the rest of us - especially Goku - if needed.

Gohan, Master Roshi and I were able to keep tabs on the various ki signatures from where we were. We sensed Piccolo abruptly get stronger and fly towards the ki cluster. We felt Piccolos ki start to take a dive. Then Krillen and future Trunks reached the ki cluster. Tenshinhan and Vegeta were headed for the battle as well.

The cluster of fake kis took off, fading as they did so. I hoped that the new monster was already dead but Gohan didn't think so. He said the monster must know how to hide its energy. Our friends split up again. Vegeta took off by himself. Krillen and future Trunks flew together, headed north. Tenshinhan and Piccolo flew together, they changed direction a lot. This continued for the next two days. Gohan and I remained at the Kame House, watching the news and sensing everyones energy signatures as they kept moving around. I think that Goku is the only one that got a decent amount of sleep during this time and on the last day, he was finally sleeping soundly.

In retrospect, I will say that one ki signature I didn't sense very much was Chaozus and I really wish that I had. Because the monster, Cell, wasn't doubling Chaozus energy signature. I'm not sure how or why but I don't think Cell had much - if any - of Chaozus DNA. So perhaps... It's a long shot but maybe Cell would have been vulnerable to psychic attacks. Telekinesis might have worked anyway. But Chaozu was sick of fighting, so he didn't. I guess he just stayed in hiding and packed for a trip to planet Namek, in case. Another thing that occurs to me in retrospect is that Cell claimed to have Gokus DNA. So maybe Cell also had the viral heart disease that Goku was suffering from. If we could have aggravated that somehow then perhaps we could have saved a few lives but that's just speculation.

After two days - this would be day three of Goku being out of commission - Tenshinhan, Piccolo and Krillen returned to the Kame House. They were exhausted but refused to take a break. Piccolo told us about fusing with Kami and chasing Cell. Krillen explained that he and Trunks had blown up a laboratory somewhere on the other side of the globe and that because of their adventure, Bulma now had the androids blueprints. Hopefully she would find a weakness.

We all got aboard a plane and left the Kame House. We couldn't just sit around while the world was being demolished. Tenshinhan, Krillen, Gohan, Piccolo and I were aboard the plane. We were debating our plan of attack. We knew now that Cell was looking for the androids and we knew that we had to track Cell down because we could at least detect his ki. We hoped to locate Cell before he found the androids. Gohan thought we should look for Vegeta and future Trunks before we started any fights. Piccolo thought that as long as we kept ripping Cells tail out, we might stand a chance.

Guess who suddenly appeared on the plane and nearly gave us all heart attacks by doing so? Why yes, it was Goku. The medicine had finished its job. Goku was back - or so he claimed - to his old self and eager to fight. He told us to return to the Kame House and get some rest, to leave the battle to him. Then he grabbed Gohan by the arm and teleported off the plane.

We tracked Gokus ki long enough to feel that he also collected Vegeta and future Trunks. Between the four of them, we knew that we had three Super Saiyans and Gohan - who was probably just as dangerous without needing to have his hair change color. So we did what Goku had recommended. We turned the plane around and went back to the Kame House. Most of us hadn't slept in the past few days so we agreed that it might be beneficial to catch a few quick zs before we attempted to help save the world. Again.

Back at the Kame House, Piccolo ordered the rest of us to get some sleep. He promised that he'd keep guard. Yea. The demon-prince, the guy that was trying to destroy the Earth once upon a time - now we trusted him enough to let him stand guard by himself. Odd how circumstances can change people. Guess we were too tired to argue with him. And for the record, I don't know why Piccolo didn't need to sleep as well. Maybe Nameks don't sleep. Maybe that's why he meditates so much. That's something you'd have to ask Piccolo.

Anyway. I gradually fell asleep. Had some disturbing dreams that I can still kind of recall, although not very clearly. Something about dying and something else with a bunch of people that I didn't recognize even though I felt like I should know them. Nothing that made a lot of sense.

Jeez, I've been typing for a while huh? I should stop for now and heck - so should you. Maybe get up and do some stretches, stretches are good for the circulation. Sorry about ranting. I'm just trying to record all the details that I remember because who knows how much longer my memory is going to stay with me. Guess I hadn't expected to remember so much.

**ooxoo**


	22. Getting things in order

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 22: Getting things in order**

**T**his whole android thing gets a bit too complicated to really summarize. So if you really want to know how it got started then I'm afraid you'll just have to read the previous two parts.

I was at the Kame House. Goku had been sick for three days, during which time everyone else covered for him. Just keep that in mind, okay? It's an accomplishment worth recognizing. Most of us didn't end up being real active in the battles against Cell. But if we hadn't been able to buy Goku time to get better and Vegeta time to train then our world wouldn't exist anymore.

Tenshinhan, Krillen and I were taking well deserved naps after three solid days of stress. We'd each been awake for the better part of four days. So we'd more or less passed out from exhaustion. Piccolo had volunteered to keep watch. Goku, Gohan, future Trunks and Vegeta had left to - as far as we knew - defeat Cell. I can't speak for the others but personally, I expected that the world would no longer be endangered by the time I woke up. For better or worse, I had that much confidence in the fighting skills of the Saiyans.

I was the last one to wake up at the Kame House. ChiChi and Roshi were both awake and pacing around. Oolong and Puar were debating the merits of leaving the planet. Oolong thought it would be sensible to just leave now but Puar didn't want to abandon her friends and family. Tenshinhan and Piccolo were gone. What had woken me up was the sound of a phone ringing. Krillen was on the phone and he signaled for me to stay put, otherwise I might have left to investigate. I didn't understand why Tenshinhan and Piccolo had left. Remember that at the time, I figured that the world must be safe again. We had entrusted Gohan and three Super Saiyans to secure things after all.

While Krillen finished the phone conversation, I looked for the energy signatures of our friends. I was immediately alarmed to note the complete lack of Saiyans. Where on Earth were they?!

Technically - as I found out later - they weren't on Earth at that time. Gohan, Goku, future Trunks and Vegeta were all up on Kamis Lookout to get some sort of special training that was never really explained to me. They went into a room for a day and came out a year older as well as a bunch stronger. This bothers me a lot. I'd trained for eight frickin months on Kamis Lookout. Why the heck hadn't anyone mentioned that special training room back then? Maybe we could have defeated Nappa and Vegeta if we'd all trained in there. Of course, I suppose that if we'd killed Vegeta at our first meeting then future Trunks wouldn't have been able to warn us of the androids and give Goku the heart medicine...

Ever get the eerie feeling that someone you know happens to sort of inadvertently be the center of the universe? That everything important happens for the sake of that one person? I think that's where Gokus real power is - the universe just kinda seems to bend the rules for him most the time. The most ridiculous surreal things become possible just so that, in the end, Goku can stay alive to defend the rest of us.

Anyway. The Saiyans must have been powered down because I couldn't detect them. Goku, Gohan, Vegeta - as long as they're _near_ the planet, we can usually detect them. That's how strong each of them are. So in the absence of their ki signatures, I was beginning to fear that Cell had killed them all. And to make matters worse, I found Piccolos energy signature.

Piccolo was going down fast. He was fighting in such a way that he was burning a lot of energy with each attack. Which is not his typical fighting style - he must have been fairly frightened to start killing himself like that. From the looks of things, Piccolo couldn't last much longer. I sensed that and I wanted to do something but... Honestly, what could I do? In the first place, I figured that Cell had already murdered all of the Saiyans. I knew my limits. Knew that I wouldn't stand a chance against anything that strong. In the second place, Tenshinhans ki signature was right there by the battle. And that was kind of odd. Because while Piccolo seemed to be dying, Tenshinhans ki was fine.

If you learn to detect energy signatures at all then you can usually tell whether someone is fighting or not. The energy projects certain feelings with it. I was puzzled but I figured that either Tenshinhan still held some fairly serious grudges against Piccolo or that the battle was taking place in some kind of natural maze. Of course the other possible explanation was that Tenshinhan and Piccolo might just be fighting in the old, honorable one-on-one style. And they had to know that we couldn't defeat Cell by fighting one-on-one. So Tenshinhan and Piccolo, if they were doing that then they were just stalling. Buying time. But I had no idea what they could be waiting for.

Really, I just wanted to get out of the Kame House and see what the heck was going on. Yea, it probably would have killed me to go those battles. But I was convinced that I'd probably get killed eventually anyway - so why not investigate first? I would hate to die clueless.

Krillen got off the phone and he was upset about something. Lots of things actually. He told me that while the rest of us had been asleep, the androids had arrived at the Kame House. Piccolo had talked them into fighting elsewhere. Tenshinhan - like most people trained to be assassins, he's a light sleeper - had heard them leaving. So Tenshin had woken Krillen up before departing and Krillen had been about to wake me up when the phone rang.

Nothing wakes you up quite so thoroughly as learning that you were almost killed in your sleep. If Piccolo hadn't been there or if Nameks needed sleep like the rest of us... Then the androids could have just incinerated the Kame House with all of us asleep inside. Maybe Goku would have saved us but... I dunno if he could have reached us in time. Even with his teleporting ability, Goku probably wouldn't have realized that we were in danger until after the fact. So the news of the androids visit was more than a bit chilling.

And then, as if my nerves weren't in bad enough shape already... Krillen said the phone call had been from Bulma. He was upset with her for a variety of reasons. Including the fact that Bulma - one of the richest people in the world - had called us collect. I'd wild guess that she wasn't in the best of moods. I could understand that, we'd all had a stressful three or so days but... I'm sorry, I lost a lot of respect for Bulma here. Not that I had very much respect for her anymore. It's hard to respect someone when they don't even try to respect you.

Bulma had been studying the android blueprints for the past three days. As a result, she had found a weakness that we could exploit. Bulma had invented and built some sort of device that might be able to turn off the androids. It was great news to hear but Krillen reported all of this in a somber tone as if it were bad news.

I soon found out why. Bulma was acting a tad childish. I mean we all have our moods but... To have a mood like this when the planet is at stake is just... Augh. Instead of just giving the remote to us so that we could turn off the androids and save the world, Bulma was making demands. Krillen felt that Bulma had betrayed our friendship in that sense but he also admitted that he'd agreed to the deal.

Bulmas demands were simple: she wanted to be given a foot massage. By me.

Since when do I know anything about foot massages?

This whole dilemma was starting to reek of personal revenge. I didn't feel that I deserved that kind of disrespect. If my personal martial arts career hadn't seen its peak ten years ago then I might have been tempted to punch Krillen for agreeing to this mess. As it was though, Krillen could currently stomp me into the ground and I had the sinking feeling that he would demonstrate if I tried to back out of this.

So Krillen escorted me over to Capsule Corp. I was dreading our arrival the whole way.

Let me just say - please, learn from my mistake. Okay? Our mistake. Do not ever fall in love with someone because of how they look. A relationship that shallow doesn't last and it's just not worth being jaded for the rest of your life. Bulma and I found this out the hard way. We'd been young, lonely and ignorant. We had liked each other for all the wrong reasons. It was very superficial. Our so-called relationship had only lasted maybe a couple weeks at the most, during which time we didn't see much of each other. After that the relationship was over but it just sat around getting more stale and rotten because we didn't want to let go of it right away. Anymore we still pretend to be friends but truthfully, we can't stand each other. We're a tad bitter. It is kind of sad.

Thankfully, I didn't have to give Bulma the stupid foot massage. That's an incredibly good thing. Not only for my dignity but for Bulmas health. I'm not usually a cruel person but the temptation to break her leg would have been enormous.

Bulmas parents do have a lot of influence over her. They had argued with her after she'd called us. Mrs. Briefs and Dr. Briefs both disapproved of how their daugher was behaving. So when we arrived at Capsule Corp, Bulma just gave us the remote and left. She was 34 years old and sulking like...well...a spoiled brat. Which I guess she is. It just doesn't usually show. At least when Bulma left, she took baby Trunks with her. I was glad to see that.

I had worked myself into a very bad mood on the way over. Krillen noticed. He told me rather bluntly to go back to the Kame House and calm down. It was kind of implied that if I didn't, Krillen would redefine pain for me. I knew he was only asking for my own good though. I was a bit too emotional to be any good in a battle right then.

A certain amount of emotion in fighting is okay but too much emotion will just impair your judgment and distract you. I know myself well enough to admit that. I know that I'm a lousy fighter if I have too much at stake. I get too worried about the risks and consequences to fight decently. I honestly don't know how the others manage to deal with it sometimes.

Grudgingly, I headed back to the Kame House. That was really hard. Piccolos energy signature was, for all practical purposes, gone and Tenshinhans ki was starting to slip. I wanted to help but I knew that I couldn't. Aside from lacking the raw power, I was too badly preoccupied with my own emotions. And I wasn't alone in that regard. Where ever the heck Chaozu and Yajirobe were, they each went through the same thing. They could sense the energy signatures too. And as much as they each wanted to help, they knew their limits. They knew they could be more helpful to us by staying in hiding, staying alive and figuring out how to undo the inevitable damage. Gohan says it wasn't easy for the Saiyans up at Kamis Lookout either. He wanted to go save Piccolo but even Gohan knew his limits. He knew that if he was going to have a chance at defeating Cell and rescuing anyone then he had to finish the training first.

But we also all had one speck of hope that maybe the worst could be prevented: Krillen.

Talk about pressure.

Krillen was flying towards the place where Tenshinhan and Cell were fighting. He had the remote. He was hoping that since Cell was an android, maybe the remote would be able to deactivate Cell. Krillen had no idea that any other androids might still be around the area. They don't have ki, remember? None of us could sense them.

That's another reason everyone else hung back. We were being extremely optimistic. Kinda uncharacteristic for us but it was better than thinking about the alternatives. We all figured that the battle would be over soon. That Krillen would save the world by deactivating Cell with the remote. Then all that we would need to worry about was getting Piccolo wished back to life and giving Tenshin a senzu bean. We figured that either Piccolo, Tenshinhan and/or Cell had probably taken care of whatever other androids might have posed a problem. So when nothing happened... When Krillen was in range of Cell but Cells cluster of energy signatures didn't disappear, we felt crushed. At least I did because recall that at the time, I wasn't aware that the Saiyans were still alive. I thought the remote must have gotten broken or maybe it didn't work. Maybe Bulma had given us a bogus remote just to spite us. To Bulmas credit though, that was a mean thing of me to assume. She's a perfectionist and a genius. Even if she doesn't like a project, she will do it and do it well. I can give her that much credit and that much respect. Any mechanical thing that Bulma builds, works and - ninety percent of the time - works the way she meant it to.

Gokus ki made a short appearance on Earth. Never been so happy in all my life to detect him. He was gone quickly but he'd taken the remains of Piccolo and Tenshinhans ki signatures with him - so they were safe. Still. It was confusing. Why had Goku left at all? Why didn't he stay and fight? And for crimineys sake - Krillen! Goku hadn't saved his best friend. Krillens ki signature was still out there, not all that far away from Cell. I sincerely hoped that Krillen was hiding but... He wasn't powered down enough to be hiding very effectively.

I stepped out of the Kame House, preparing to leave. Then I hesitated, standing on the beach outside as two massive ki signatures registered. Vegeta and future Trunks. It took me a moment to recognize their energies. They were a whole lot stronger - which is saying a ton because they hadn't been weak to begin with. A day ago, each of them had been capable of reaching Super Saiyan. Now they'd surpassed that.

Vegeta and future Trunks made a swift beeline straight for Cell. Things were about to get hectic. I decided that maybe it would be wise to just stay out of the way.

Now in retrospect, for the record - I have no idea why Goku and Gohan didn't finish their special training at the same time that Vegeta and future Trunks did. Gohan has told me that they took turns, going into the room to train in pairs. But that doesn't explain why all four of them couldn't have gone in and trained together. Then they would have all been done at the same time and having all four of them come down at once, that certainly would have changed things. Ah well. Water under the bridge.

Vegeta and future Trunks were more than enough to keep Cell preoccupied. And Cell must have preferred stronger opponents because he waited for them to arrive, he didn't attack Krillen. Er. Krillen is extremely tough. I don't mean any discredit to him. It just that neither he nor any of the rest of us were able to keep pace with the Saiyans. Hence Cell didn't consider us worthwhile. That's all.

I didn't understand why Krillen chose to remain in the area. Our Saiyan friends have the tendency to rearrange the landscape during their battles. So they aren't just threats to their opponents, they're dangerous to everyone and everything within a few miles of the fight. I didn't want Krillen to get killed by accident.

Cell powered up. Considering Cells power, I think it's probably a miracle that our planet stayed intact. There were visible side effects of Cells aura even far away from the battle. For example, I was abruptly staring up at a wall of sheer blue water.

The tidal wave literally came out of nowhere and crashed down on the island with enough force to throw me backwards through the Kame House even as the place was collapsing. I was underwater for less than a minute but that seemed like an eternity. I had to power up to stay conscious. I realized that if it was hard for me to keep from fainting then Puar, ChiChi, Oolong and Master Roshi might be drowning. So I never made it to watch Vegeta fighting Cell and I wouldn't figure out why Krillen had hung around that battle until later. I was kind of preoccupied with rescuing a handful of my friends and trying to salvage what was left of the Kame House. Guess it's a good thing that I hadn't flown off. Although Umigame - the giant sea turtle who lives at the Kame House - had also managed to stay conscious and he helped to rescue everyone.

Vegetas ki slipped. This was starting to get really scary. Cell had fought Piccolo, Tenshinhan and Vegeta in the same day without taking a break. Yet Cell didn't seem any weaker. Even after all those battles - plus a battle against the androids that I didn't know about at the time since I couldn't detect the androids - Cell didn't show any sign of tiring out. The cluster of ki had only faltered once or twice but for the most part, Cell seemed as strong as ever.

Now... Piccolo was still alive. And Piccolo had fused permanently with Kami. The dragonballs are only as strong as their makers and currently, their maker was stronger than usual. He had gotten a power boost from the fusion. That's logic, right? Wrong. Logic never works in our favor, remember? We were up the creek without a paddle, so to speak. Piccolo had fused with Kami and that is roughly the same as saying that Capsule Corp bought some other company. One completely absorbs the other. Kami was part of Piccolo now. Kami didn't exist independently anymore. If they had fused differently, if Kami had absorbed Piccolo instead of vice versa, then maybe the dragonballs would have still existed. But as things were, it was like Kami had died. It was Piccolos ki signature, his form - all that. That's what makes Namekian fusion unique. The end result, the fused warrior, has the combined raw power of both parts but only keeps the traits of one and only has one ki signature. This is why even after fusing with Kami, Piccolo didn't have any of Kamis divine skills. I only mention this because I know that things would have been different - maybe better, maybe much worse but definitely different - if Piccolo had inherited those talents. Just worth pointing out.

Something else worth pointing out: we didn't get to say goodbye to Kami. Piccolo fused with him and he was gone. Kami had been a friend and a teacher. He'd watched over our planet for more than three hundred years. Kami had been there to offer advice when we were alive and also when we were ghosts. He had tried to protect us at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai. He had attended and blessed Gokus wedding. He'd trained Goku for three years and the rest of us for eight months. His training had improved our power and our reflexes. He had helped us learn to handle and detect energy with more confidence. Kami had always encouraged us to do our best and he was one of the only creatures who had thanked us for our efforts to defend Earth. He had made the dragonballs and so, in a sort of indirect way, he was responsible for most of our early dragonball-hunting adventures AND for all of the wishes that had ever been granted by Shenlong. Kami had been a nice guy, a good person. Unfortunately with everything that was going on, we didn't have a lot of opportunity to honor his memory or even miss him right away. It seems a shame.

Another power up occurred. Future Trunks was evidently upset and his power created some interesting weather for us. Krillen finally seemed to realize that it might be safer to watch the battles from further away, so he picked up Vegeta and headed for the Kame House.

This would make the third time in his life that Krillen has saved Vegeta and every time, he has done it at someone elses request. He didn't kill Vegeta on the princes first visit to Earth because of Goku, he saved Vegeta on planet Namek because of Gohan and he got Vegeta away from Cell because future Trunks had asked him to. Krillen is generally a good guy. In each case he might have acted the same way if it had been purely his own decision instead of someone elses request. But once again, there is the possibility that so much could have worked out differently.

I can't emphasize this enough. I'm just trying to make you realize that most of the time, the stuff that happened wasn't planned out. A lot of events happened by chance because we were doing what we thought was best. Looking back, not all of our actions really made sense in the end - but they had made sense to us at the time.

Cell was either frightened or amused by future Trunks powering up. I don't know which reason applies. Whatever his reason though, Cell simply walked away from that fight. This is what truly sets Cell apart from other evil villains - he turned down a fight. He wasn't in any hurry to kill us and take over the world. Cell knew that he could beat us if we had to fight one-on-one, so he announced a tournament. He called it the Cell Games because, well, that's what it was going to be. Cell was playing with us, that was his attitude towards it. He even gave us ten days to train.

Blame it on his genetics. Cell suffers from having all our egos combined, along with a few other egos like Freezias added in. Of all the annoying things you never expect to save your life - ego power. Heh. Eesh.

Goku and Gohan finished their training. Although Goku hadn't actually trained much since his health was a concern. He was still recovering from the heart virus but he did his best not to show it. Goku hadn't exactly lied to us when he'd said that he felt better. He had just failed to tell anyone that he wasn't completely healthy yet.

Because of the special room, all of the Saiyans were now technically a year older. So Gohan was now 11, Goku was 31, Vegeta was 36 and future Trunks was around 18. In a situation like this, there's only one sensible thing to do. Have a birthday party. What? Isn't that what you would have done?

Much to my surprise, my attitude had rubbed off on most of my friends. The idea of: 'I trained my whole life and I'm sick of it, what difference can a few more days make?' was finally being shared. Even Goku was showing signs of being sick of fighting all the time. So those ten days we had - most of us didn't train. We had no intention of training. We were just getting our lives in order and living those ten days as if they were our last because truthfully, we felt that they might be.

Piccolo did train though, he went into that special room at Kamis Lookout. And Vegeta and future Trunks each went back to the room in their turn. Kind of a shame. They missed out on a decent birthday party. Bulma also missed out. Krillen had taken the remains of Android 16 over to Capsule Corp. Thus Bulma was, with help from her father, at work on repairing 16 during this time. 16 was the only android left - except for Cell, of course.

Cell also trained. He murdered the entire Imperial Army in one afternoon. What a creep.

On the same day that Cell massacred all those people, Goku decided that we needed a way to reverse the damage. He teleported himself to Namek - the new planet Namek since the old one had been blown up, don't ask me how Goku knew where the new place was - and soon returned to us. With Dende. I'd met Dende before, back when he'd been stranded on Earth due to lack of a home planet along with all the other Namek refugees. It was kind of neat to see Dende again. I hadn't really expected to.

Dende became our new Kami - and as I say this, I have the feeling that a few other people had turned down the job. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that Goku had turned down the title of Kami, again. Wouldn't surprise me much if Gohan and Piccolo had also each refused the position. They never mentioned any such offer but I trust my instincts on this. I have the feeling that at least Gohan or Goku could have been Kami if they'd wanted to. The only thing that really stood in their way... Is that you have to be a Namek to create dragonballs, apparently. Anyway. Dende was happy to see us all again. I imagine that for him, this had to be some sort of amazing adventure - gave him an opportunity to learn even more about our alien culture and everything. He was also very willing to work. Within five minutes of being named the Kami of Earth, Dende had gotten started on creating a new set of dragonballs for us. Ya gotta give the kid points for being eager.

When it was time for the Cell Games to begin Piccolo, Vegeta and future Trunks had each gained another year of age. So Vegeta, who had started out as one year older than me, was now technically age 37 - three years older than me. Future Trunks was closer to 20. Piccolo was 15 in Earth years which means that in Namek years, he was 45. Or at least, that's our best guess.

This age thing makes Piccolo unique. He was technically younger than me but older than me at the same time. Hence I was never really sure how to act around him or what age to think of him as. Most of my human friends can relate. Maybe this is part of why Piccolo tends to be a loner. Having dual ages has got to be at least as confusing for him as it is for us. And that's only the ages that we know about, okay? I don't know if the fusions had affected his age as well. If you permanently fuse with someone who is older than you, does it make you older? Kami had been over the age of a thousand in Namekian years and apparently Piccolo, back during the battles with Freezia, had fused with at least one other Namek as well. Maybe this did affect Piccolos age and his mind, not just his raw strength. It would make sense but I don't know. It's not my place to assume these kinds of things.

**ooxoo**


	23. Price of victory

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 23: Price of victory**

**T**he Cell Games began at noon. I was half tempted to bring a recording of some music from a western movie because that's just the sort of feeling there was. That feeling when the two cowboys are slowly walking out to face each other in a dusty street. Preparing to have the type of showdown that is guaranteed to leave one of the cowboys dead. That is exactly how you should imagine the Cell Games, that is the feeling. The whole world seemed to go quiet in anticipation.

And then a rodeo clown runs through the scene and ruins the mood...

Mr. Satan made an unexpected appearance. He and his students put on an act for us by insisting that they should battle Cell first. The talking lasted a while but the battle, if you really want to call it that, was over in under thirty seconds. I'm not saying...well... Yea, I am. The guy is an idiot. At least he was in this case. What the heck had made Mr. Satan think that he could defeat Cell? I swear, it seemed like the guy was just trying to get himself in the news.

On the other hand though, the whole world was at stake. And Earth is Mr. Satans home planet too. He had as much right as we did to try to defend the place.

The situation on our world is worth pointing out. Cell had announced his tournament on international tv. The result had been ten solid days of mass hysteria. Schools closed. Businesses closed. Baseball games were - tada - canceled. Crime rates tripled and so did prices. People began hoarding supplies and leaving the cities en masse. Guess they believed that they could hide and escape from Cell that way. Sad, isn't it? Cell had been very clear. The monster hadn't made idle threats. He could blow up the Earth. Yet people thought that hiding would help. And a lot of these people, they didn't plan their escapes very well. They just cut all contact and went into isolation. No radio or anything. As if ignoring the problem would make it go away. There are stories about people that are still, even now, out living in caves somewhere. Hiding from Cell and waiting for the world to explode.

Why the panic? Uhm. Let me put it this way. If I were to wander up and ask you to name the last five people inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on your world - could you do it? What about the Nobel prize, I've heard about that one. Someone who does great work for humanity gets the Nobel Prize, right? But can you name any of the winners? It's just one of those things. The human race... We all have quite the selective memories. No matter how much you accomplish or how famous you become - there will always be people on Earth who have no idea who you are or what you represent. Goku is a case in point. He was respected by serious martial artists and a handful of friends that he'd made during adventures. But beyond that, Goku was virtually unheard of. The general public on our world had no idea who Goku was. They'd forgotten.

The martial arts schools in our world are established. They're thousands of years old. With that kind of history, the dojos have earned a certain amount of influence in society. Plus you have to consider - Master Roshi and his students, The Crane Master and his students, Korin and his students... That's only a small group! It does not accurately reflect on our world. We have millions of people here who study and practice the martial arts. Our police, our military, our royalty, our monks - they're all required to study. Most cashiers and bankers learn at least one form of self defense. Teachers - even if they teach math or a subject unrelated to martial arts - a lot of them study martial arts because it makes them feel like they can keep the schools safer. Managers study it so that they can learn to be more effective and competitive. Some people do it as a hobby, some people do it because they want to get fit and some people feel like they have better control of their lives and their emotions when they practice. It's a cultural trend here. A respected and practical tradition.

But our world has more than just martial arts. There are other combat sports, too - sports that haven't been around for as long and that maybe aren't as widely practiced. From what I've been told, your world has some of these as well. Your world has professional wrestlers. Have you ever listened to them? This is a key point. At most of our martial arts tournaments, they don't usually interview the contenders. If they do, the martial artists will often speak in a humble fashion about tradition, discipline and honor. Meanwhile at a wrestling event, they pretty much always interview the fighters either right before or after a match. And the wrestlers will speak loudly, bragging about their own skills and/or insulting their opponent. It's just an accepted part of that sport, a way to increase the drama. A way to encourage the audience to stay interested and take sides. And even when the speeches are corny, the speakers somehow manage to command a level of respect.

Mr. Satan had won the 24th Tenkaichi Budoukai less than two weeks ago. His name was still fresh in peoples minds. That's probably why so many people turned to him and pinned their hopes on him. And Mr. Satan must have done some acting or wrestling at some point in his past because what he lacked in fighting skill, he made up for with speaking skills. When he talked, people listened. When he claimed that he could save the world, people really believed him. He annoyed us but truthfully perhaps we should have taken some notes. Even as a famous baseball player, I wasn't THAT comfortable with the media. And maybe the acting went to his head. Maybe he believed his own act. Maybe the pressure was too much. I don't know. There's not much point in trying to excuse Mr. Satans behavior. He did what he thought he had to. It was bad timing but he must have had his reasons.

We had our reasons. Tenshinhan, Krillen, Piccolo, Android 16 and I. None of had been forced or even asked to go to the Cell Games. We didn't even really expect to fight. But... We were there anyway, in case. Ready to defend Earth if the Saiyans failed. Cell had taught us a new trick. We knew now that if all of us powered up at the same time and in the same place, we could cause some havoc. Just by powering up. We honestly didn't know if that would give us a chance to save the world but it seemed worth a shot.

Uhm... I did have another reason for being there. Have you noticed the irony yet? I've mentioned time and time again how strong the Saiyans are but... Think about this. When was the last time that I'd actually watched a Saiyan fight? Take a guess.

Brownie points if you guessed the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai.

That's right. The 23rd Budoukai. That was the last time I'd witnessed Goku fighting. And I mean really fighting. True, I'd seen him much more recently in a battle against Android 19 but I'm not sure that counts since Goku wasn't so much fighting as getting pulverized. Vegeta - I'd caught glimpses of what he could do but hadn't actually witnessed a whole fight. And Gohan... I'd never even seen the kid fully powered up. So that was my other reason for attending the Cell Games. I'd heard about all the Saiyans power, the training they'd done and the fights they'd been in. I could sense their ki and had even been able to detect some of the battles that I hadn't witnessed in person. But... I wanted to finally see for myself just how strong and skilled the Saiyans really were.

Tenshinhan can probably relate. He was in the same situation as me - we'd heard all the hype but hadn't seen the evidence firsthand. For Krillen and Piccolo though, it's different. They had been at every major fight since the 23rd Budoukai. They'd fought Raditz. They'd survived longer against Nappa and Vegeta. They'd gone to planet Namek. They'd helped Gohan to defeat Garlic Junior. And they'd been training, off and on, with Goku. So maybe the Cell Games wasn't such a shock to Krillen and Piccolo. Maybe seeing the Saiyans in action wasn't such a blow to their confidence. For me, this would be the last straw. For a long time I'd_ felt _like my friends didn't need me anymore when it came to defending the Earth but after the Cell Games... I _knew_ for a fact that I wasn't needed.

Oh and for the record, Cell is a giant insect. Which is a little strange considering that he's an android made out of human and Saiyan DNA. Guess Cell looks more like Freezia than anything else - that's what the general consensus here is. I'd never actually seen Freezia though so it's not exactly how I'd been picturing Cell. Just seeing that he was a giant insect was kind of a surprise.

We weren't given time to contemplate. Cell said that the real fighting should begin and Goku agreed. Our nerves were on edge. The way I remember that whole scene - it still seems surreal. It did play out almost like a western. You have these two larger than life types, the legendary hero and the infamous villain, both glad for a chance test their skills on a worthy opponent. They stood across from each other, staring each other down and smirking confidently as if they knew something we didn't. Each waiting for the other one to make the first move.

Once it started, the battle was fast and furious. Goku and Cell seemed equally matched for a while. In an attempt to gain the advantage, Goku starting using more risky tactics - aiming an attack at Earth while it powered up then changing direction at the last second, etc. He could have easily blown the planet away by accident. Scary to watch but Goku knew what he was doing. And it almost worked. There were a couple of times when we thought that the battle was over, that Goku had won for sure. But each time Cell would get up and heal himself and cackle that he hadn't been fighting at full power. And the fight would resume.

The Cell Games started in the arena that Cell had built. About midway through his fight with Goku, Cell destroyed the arena and declared the boundaries of the fight to be infinite. In other words, Earth became the arena. It was no longer possible to end the fight by knocking the opponent out of bounds. I don't know why Cell did this. The fight was never really in the arena anyway - most of the battle had been airborne.

Goku started to slip. He was tiring out, slowly but surely. Just a couple of mistakes here and there. Probably was the most painful thing I've ever had to watch. Goku didn't _want _to lose. He was trying to stay in the fight but that heart virus had really pulled number on him and being aged a whole year in the special training room hadn't improved his health.

With one important exception, we all wanted to go down there and help. After all, Goku had always tried to help us. There's no way that any of us wanted to sit around and watch a friend get killed. Goku knew that. And Cell had already proven he could defeat Vegeta, Tenshinhan, Piccolo and Android 16. Goku knew that too. So Goku did something that none of us expected. He stepped down. He forfeited. Goku backed out of that fight before any of us could try to interfere. He demanded the right to choose Cells next opponent.

Remember how we've all always kinda been wary of Gohan? It was justified. We were about to find out how justified. Goku picked his son. He honestly believed that Gohan could obliterate Cell. Goku might be a bit of a klutz at times but he was serious and when he is serious, he is very rarely wrong.

Gohan, by the way, was the exception I mentioned earlier. He'd been watching the fight and he was the one person that didn't want to go help because for some reason, to Gohan, the fight had looked staged. Gohan assumed that his father hadn't really been trying and was startled to learn that he was incorrect. The fight - which had been a challenge for most of us to follow - had looked simple to Gohan. When chosen, he had the decency to hesitate. I think we'd all be much more afraid of the kid if he'd been eager to fight. However the hesitation did kinda put our lives at risk.

Cell got bored of just talking, he didn't think that Gohan could live up to Gokus expectations. So Cell demonstrated a pretty funky attack that he sure as heck didn't inherit from any of us. He created a bunch of miniature clones. Seven of them. Tenshinhan has an attack where he can create three clones but those are not miniatures so... Cell was modifying our attacks. He was creating his own versions of our techniques. That worried us because we didn't know what to expect anymore. Worse, it seemed like using the attack didn't weaken Cell very much - if at all. Usually with any kind of split-form technique, you have to weaken yourself to share your energy between the forms. Somehow, those stupid little Cell Juniors were about as strong as Cell himself.

Oh and by the way, if you ever want to make an enemy for life - improve one Tenshinhans attacks and then use it against him. He'll take it as an insult. Yikes.

The clones came after us. One Cell Junior for each of us - Goku, Vegeta, Krillen, Tenshinhan, Piccolo, future Trunks and I. They went after everyone but Gohan. Despite our best efforts, we didn't stand a chance. Aside from being powerful, these things were short and that made them harder to defend against.

Android 16 seized the opportunity and more importantly, he seized Cell. 16 valiantly tried to self-destruct and take Cell with him. This plan could have worked except that while Bulma had been repairing him, she had taken the self-destruct device out of Android 16. Cell ripped Android 16 to pieces right in front of us. Mr. Satan was still around. He'd had the common sense to hide, which is why we hadn't noticed him sooner. He threw Android 16s head out to Gohan. Android or not, catching a disembodied head can't be a terribly pleasant experience. Gohan finally got angry and we immediately realized why he hadn't wanted to. The kids sheer presence on the planet is enough to endanger us all. He went Super Saiyan 2. He almost made it look easy.

Gohan proceeded to cream the Cell Juniors. Those insanely powerful little creatures might as well have been made out of paper. Gohan then stole back the senzu beans from Cell (we'd had them earlier, before Cell took them) and entrusted Trunks with those so the rest of us could recover. Cell acted mildly impressed. Gohan gave Cell a look that...well...if looks alone could kill then everything in a five mile radius would have withered up and died.

We were all stunned. Completely and utterly stunned. Even Piccolo and Vegeta and future Trunks. Each of us had always kind of suspected that Gohan was a lot stronger than he gave himself credit for being - but this display of power... Was more than we had imagined possible.

The only person that wasn't stunned was Goku. He was annoyed. Goku thought that Gohan was still holding back.

Right about now I'm interested in buying a private space shuttle and leaving Earth. I mean seriously... Holding back? He's outrageously strong already and you want me to believe he's holding back, that there's more?! How much could Gohan have been holding back? I didn't even want to think about it.

Turns out that Gohan was holding back, just enough to keep him from being more powerful than Cell. Gohan was - and might still be - very afraid that instead of taking over the hero role from his father, he would become a monster than nobody could defeat. Gohan had never in his life fought with his full power so he was worried that he wouldn't be able to control the power if he summoned it all. He didn't want the power to destroy him, he didn't want the power to destroy any of us.

The kid was only 11...

Are there even words for how disturbing that is? That an 11 year old should have to even think those sorts of things. That Gohan was coping with all this, that stunned us even more than his strength.

Gohan landed a punch which caused Cell to vomit. Cell threw up Android 18. She was limp and covered in slime. Yuck. What a way to die. Hard not to feel sorry for her. As soon as the fighting had moved away from her body, Krillen went to see if she was okay - even though she obviously wasn't.

Cell was weakened by the loss. He'd absorbed Androids 17 and 18 to gain strength so without 18 inside of him, Cell wasn't as strong. Cell felt threatened. He decided to blow up the Earth rather than hang around and let Gohan beat him up. Goku had been watching quietly and he came to a decision unlike any he'd ever made. I don't know what exactly possessed him but Goku seemed to understand that Gohan was not going to win. He knew that deep down, Gohan didn't even want to be there. Perhaps Goku felt guilty for making his son fight. Or perhaps he just didn't want Gohan to have to deliver the killing blow.

Goku teleported away. He took Cell with him. Unfortunately, Cell came back. Goku didn't.

We didn't quite grasp right then what had just happened. We hadn't seen Cell self-destruct because he'd been teleported away. It took us a moment to realize that Cell had survived the impossible and that Goku had died trying to save us all. In that moment, as we tried to collect our wits, future Trunks was killed.

The worst thing about this whole battle is that we couldn't believe that it was going to turn out okay. As much as I would have liked to have been able to say: "Hey Gohan, don't sweat it. Your dad will be back and we'll win this thing somehow." I couldn't. It would have been a blatant lie. We all knew that. That's the heart wrenching part of this hero business, you want to reassure people but you can't. There isn't anything cheerful you can say to a child when they have just seen one of their parents sacrifice themselves.

And likewise... There isn't anything comforting you can tell a parent who has just lost a child.

Vegeta might not have always been an ideal father but the death of future Trunks made him abruptly realize how important that aspect of life was to him. He was outraged. Vegeta attacked Cell. For all his skill in battle, Vegeta was too overwhelmed with emotion to do much damage.

Gohan took these few moments to recover from his own shock. Then he got mad. Really mad. I mean the kind of pure dangerous anger where you don't even want to be on the same continent as the kid. You get the feeling that he would sooner kill you than look at you and that for him, killing you would be as easy as looking at you. That anger of his really transforms him, he's a totally different person. He becomes like some kind of immortal - you just don't even dare to question him if you value your life. It was more than Super Saiyan 2, it was something else on top of that. A confidence boost. Gohan'd had the power all along - but now, he was willing to use it.

Cell was still batting Vegeta around when Gohan stepped in. Gohan took a blast that saved Vegeta some pain. The blast broke Gohans arm yet he took it without flinching. All Gohan had to do was just stand there looking deadly and he terrified Cell. They traded blows for a bit. Cell began to panic and make errors. Gohan was methodically ripping Cells defense - and composure - to pieces.

In his own defense, Cell launched a massive blast of energy. Gohan matched it. The energy beams collided and we all waited to see who would be the first to blink.

Apparently Gohan can't stay mad for long. Not the level of anger that he needs to summon his full power anyway. Would probably destroy him to stay like that for long, mentally if not physically. So Gohan started to slip back to being himself.

The rest of us had been watching all these fights from a safe distance. We were as frightened of Gohan as we were of Cell but determined to do what we could to try to make sure the Earth survived. And...we saw the anger sort of wear out. Instead of seeing Gohan as this monster, he was a kid again. We had to get him out of there. We had to help him. Piccolo flew out first, Gohan is about the only person on Earth that Piccolo has a lot of genuine respect for. Tenshinhan figured that he might as well go out fighting and I tagged along. Krillen lingered at the sidelines for just a moment before putting Android 18s body down and joining us. Our attacks were the best that we could give but it wasn't enough. Cell flicked us away and Gohan was still on the receiving end of Cells energy beam.

Vegeta had calmed down enough to be dangerous again. He hit Cell with an energy blast that succeeded in distracting the monster. Gohan took the opportunity do what Goku had known he was capable of - he obliterated Cell. Every single molecule of that monster was fried so that Cell couldn't regenerate and come back stronger.

Once the smoke had cleared and the dust had settled, we all just stood in absolute disbelief for a while.

**ooxoo**


	24. Let the healing begin

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 24: Let the healing begin...**

**A**mazingly enough, all the events of the Cell Games took less than one day. Can you say emotional roller coaster? I thought so. I think I've had more stress in under 24 hours than most people have in their entire lives. But the day wasn't over yet. There were still some things to take care of first. Wishes to be made, damage to be undone. We collected Android 18 and the body of future Trunks then flew over to Dendes Lookout to find out if the dragonballs were ready yet.

Dende surprised us. He'd made the dragonballs a bit bigger and said they were improved, they could grant two wishes each time now. Dragonballs are only as strong as their makers... This means that little Dende was more powerful than Kami had ever been. And Dendes power is in healing, he's not a warrior. It bugged Piccolo in particular that the kid was so strong.

We summoned a slightly different looking Shenlong and made the first wish to have all the damage that Cell and the androids had caused undone. This carefully worded wish repaired the Kame House, fixed the cities, revived the Imperial Army, revived anyone that had just been blown away - including future Trunks - and even brought androids 17 and 18 back to life. We didn't get Goku back, so we made that our second wish. Shenlong said no. Even though this was a brand new set of dragonballs... Shenlong had revived Goku before, so the dragon refused to grant the redundant wish. Plus Goku didn't want to come back. Goku felt that it was his fault that the world was always endangered and to some extent, we couldn't argue with his logic.

We were left in a kinda serious mood from having that wish denied and we had no idea what else to wish for. I tried to lighten the mood a bit with a joke and well... Nobody else seemed to get it. I'd said that we should wish for wealth. I thought it would be obvious that I was kidding since most of us were wealthy. Riches were the last thing we needed. The remark earned me a few looks that seemed to suggest I should switch to decaf. Guess I'll stick to baseball and leave comedy to the professionals.

Krillen took the second wish, he wanted to know if the androids could be made human. Shenlong said no without ever saying why not.

What would become more obvious later is that androids are basically human. The main differences are mostly in brain structure, weapons and lifespan. Androids have computer programming in their heads, guns in their arms and the ability to outlive us all but apparently other than that they are, for the most part, human. Dead humans. Zombies animated by robot parts. That's another reason why we couldn't sense their ki - you can't sense the life energy in something that isn't technically alive.

Krillen weighed his options for a while before he made a wish that the self-destruct devices be removed from the androids. Shenlong granted that wish and then left us.

Now... Krillen is a monk and a very fast person. So I think he would have helped anybody. If Cell had puked someone else up then Krillen would have grabbed them and gotten out of the way. Not just because Krillen was the most able to get in, grab someone and then get out of there. But because Krillen has a good heart, you know? It would have bothered him to leave someone helpless. That's all.

However, none of us could overlook the fact that Android 18 does happen to be a beautiful female. A lovely single girl who has enough power to kill a Super Saiyan without breaking a sweat. Oi. She had looked pretty different - as in non-threatening - after Cell threw her up though. And apparently she had kissed Krillen earlier, if only to tease him. So Krillen and Android 18 seemed to be kind of flirting. They avoided looking at each other in a certain way, as if they did both like each other but they wouldn't openly admit it and didn't want anyone else to realize that. Kind of weird but kind of cute.

Kind of alarming.

At the time, I wasn't sure whether Krillen had lost his mind or just his heart. And I honestly didn't want anybody to make the same mistakes that I had. I was afraid that Krillen might just be falling for her looks - because they hadn't known each other for long. That's why I mentioned that he seemed to have a crush on her. Yea, I guess that was kind of rude of me to bring up but...well...you can't always be polite and find things out. Plus it was for Krillens own sake. Bulma and I had both survived our bad break but Android 18 was a whole lot more dangerous than Bulma had ever been. What if 18 just decided to kill him? Strong as Krillen is, it wouldn't have been all that hard for her back then. So I was rude, yes, but only in order to favor caution.

The most reassuring thing happened: Android 18 seemed as badly embarrassed by my remarks as Krillen was. So she really liked him! Perhaps she wouldn't murder him after the first date. How cool is that?

Android 18 left. She wasn't sure what to think of the rest of us. She made the excuse of wanting to find her brother, 17. We let her go. We didn't chase her. Android 17... He hadn't been reincarnated at Kamis Lookout, where the group was gathered. We might have worried about him staying evil if we'd known that he was still alive. But we didn't know - wouldn't find out for years - so we didn't worry. And we didn't worry about 18 either. Because we knew that 18 would come around to our way of thinking eventually. Almost every other villain we had ever defeated and left alive has come around. Just look at the rest of us. Tenshinhan, Piccolo, Vegeta and I - between us, we represent some of the toughest opponents that Goku had while growing up.

Speaking of which... For that very same reason, it was incredibly hard to accept the fact that Goku was staying dead. He'd changed our lives. We felt like we owed him and now we'd never have the chance to really say thanks.

We buried Goku - symbolically since there was nothing physically left of Goku on Earth - the day after the Cell Games.

Awkward would be an understatement. Please understand that here, in our culture, it is a long standing tradition to cremate the dead. There are a lot of reasons for this. One of the main reasons is that people sincerely believe that burning a dead body will give the deceased persons spirit a faster journey to the afterlife. Which prevents the dead person from becoming a ghost that will haunt the family for generations. So the mere fact that we were going to just stick a coffin six feet underground instead of cremating it... This was a strange concept for us to come to terms with. Made weirder still by the fact that the coffin was empty. And even more awkward by the fact that Goku had died once before. There was a tombstone but all that was on it was Gokus full name. We ended up leaving the dates off his tombstone. None of the professional carvers could be convinced to put: _Estimated Year of Birth: 737A.D. Died: October 12, 761A.D. Reincarnated: November 2nd, 762A.D. Died, Again: May 26th, 767A.D._

The funeral service was difficult to be a part of. Most of us were having a hard time believing that Goku would - or could - stay dead. ChiChi and Gohan were of course, the most affected and for more reasons than the rest of us would be aware of for a while. But... There was also a tone of hope to the memorial. The coffin didn't stay empty. Each of us stuck thank you notes and other momentos in there. I think we half expected Goku to come back someday, so it was kind of like making a giant time capsule for him. We put all these things aside as if we thought that maybe Goku would appreciate them when he came back. The reality of him remaining dead just didn't want to sink in.

Future Trunks attended the funeral. Then he went home. He was two years older and a lot stronger than when he'd arrived due to of all the training he'd done. He thanked us and said that he believed he could save his own world now. He also said that he was glad to have had the chance to meet us all. In his world, most of us had died when Trunks was one year old - so future Trunks hadn't really known any of us. We gave him our encouragement and wished him well then watched him leave. Future Trunks climbed onto to his time machine, waved and vanished. We never saw him again. Hope things worked out okay.

The rest of our group didn't part ways for long. We eventually learned that ChiChi was pregnant with her second child. You know how ChiChi had once been really protective of Gohan? Now the tables were turned. Gohan and Ox King took excellent care of ChiChi and they let the rest of us help out from time to time. Nothing serious. Just visiting to talk or play cards. It helped everybody cope.

And I hate to sound like I'm bragging but I can cook. So can Krillen, Oolong and Puar. It's so worth learning to do. Food just plain tastes better when it's not out of a can or box. We took turns helping Gohan figure out the kitchen since he'd never made much use of one before - ChiChi had always done most of the cooking at their house, it was a passion of hers.

I don't cook too fancy since I learned to cook from having to survive on my own. But I knew some traditional Indian recipes from the Hinodejin. Plus I had a ton of recipes for fish as well as dinosaur meat. Puar has a few favorite family recipes for things like herbal teas and seafood. Krillen mostly knows vegetarian stuff - he can do a lot with rice and breads, he learned that from the monks. Oolong... I have no idea how or where Oolong learned to cook but he can make really good pasta.

ChiChi said it was nice but she was still kind of uncertain about this at first. She was very proud of her kitchen, it was kind of her private space and she wasn't fond of anyone else using it. She was uneasy about us trying to cook for her. Until we dragged Chaozu and Tenshinhan over - then ChiChi didn't mind at all.

Chaozu is a former emperor. He learned to cook by hanging out in the kitchen of the palace where he grew up. Chaozu had studied with some of the best chefs on the planet. Tenshinhan had learned to cook for survival purposes but he'd been picking up tips over the years from his friend. So they are both awesome chefs when the mood strikes them. We have all told them that they should open a catering service. Tenshinhan doesn't think so - he's not really that interested in cooking - but Chaozu has promised to consider it.

Oh and guess who else had a palace education? Yep. Vegeta. If you can manage to get into an argument with Vegeta about what culture makes better food, he will prove to you that the Saiyans can be competent cooks. Very very (very very very...) spicy food though. Traditional Saiyan recipes fall into the category where just smelling the spices is enough to make your eyes water. This is the kind of food that can burn holes through counters if left unattended. And Vegeta complains that the spices on Earth aren't anywhere near as hot as the ones that he grew up with. Hrm. Maybe this is why Saiyan hair tends to stand on end?

Anyway. Vegeta and Oolong got along great in the kitchen. They argued about everything. They also enjoyed playing with the toaster, using it to deliberately burn the toast and set off the fire alarms. Eesh.

I think the key here was baby Trunks. For a while, Vegeta was not letting that kid out of his sight. Having seen future Trunks die had really affected him. Vegeta was trying to be a better parent now and that basically meant that he had to show off. Vegeta refused to be beaten at anything - cooking included - if baby Trunks was around. Seriously. If Trunks was in the room then you probably could have challenged Vegeta to ballet dancing. None of us actually did that but we might have been tempted. The way Vegeta was acting at that time... He would have complained about it and insulted everyone but he probably would have accepted the challenge, as well. Because he wasn't going to back down if his son was there, watching. That's how important showing off around Trunks had become.

Bulma was also changing in terms of becoming a better Mom but she still didn't cook much - she hadn't ever needed to cook. Her parents and the domestic robots had always taken care of the cooking at her house. So Bulma had never learned how to cook and she wasn't really interested in learning. However Bulma was handy in the kitchen in her own way, she repaired all the various appliances that we accidentally broke. Not much of the damage was intentional. The average kitchen appliance just wasn't made for use by anyone as strong as we were. The handles almost always came off of everything and once or twice the blender got stuck in puree mode. We'd typically spend more time cleaning up than we did cooking.

Little Trunks wasn't into cooking but he was climbing on everything now. He started to pull himself up and could walk around as long as he was hanging onto something.

We even coaxed Piccolo - can you believe it - of all creatures into cooking once or twice. Nameks don't eat all that often but strangely enough, they do have a few cultural recipes. Dende recommended some of these and Mister Popo had written copies of Kamis favorite recipes but Piccolo is the one who got tricked into making the dishes. He did fairly well, considering that all his previous cooking experiences had involved bonfires and not kitchens. The resulting food? Watery stuff but not too bad. To each their own, right?

Mrs. Briefs, Bulmas Mom, visited occasionally to check on ChiChi and also on Trunks. Mrs. Briefs can cook about anything but since she was a grandma now, she had decided to specialize in cookies. And since she is an eccentric genius in her own right, those cookies were amazing. Most of them were also educational. More than once Mrs. Briefs went to the trouble of making some cookies that were shaped like letters. She was trying to teach her grandson to read with those. If he could read them then he got to eat them. Sometimes Mrs. Briefs did other themes. She also used cookies to help teach her grandson shapes, colors, numbers, science and history. Once she even made a whole batch of cookies shaped like puzzle pieces and challenged her grandson to put the puzzle together. Trunks adored her and did all right with these lessons.

Guess it's a good thing the kid was part alien and had inherited a metabolism that just burned up all those calories. The general consensus here is that outside of growth spurts, Saiyans seem to be incapable of gaining weight. And they're kinda like bears, we've noticed. Sometimes they will go for days without eating much. So when they do actually feel hungry then they tend eat a lot. Still, I got Trunks a toothbrush and had showed him how to use it otherwise he might have at least gotten a cavity. Also we all made sure that the kid stayed active - which wasn't hard. Trunks liked being more mobile. He had enough energy for all of us. We got plenty of exercise just keeping up with the kid and trying to make sure that he didn't hurt himself - or break stuff - while climbing on things.

Vegeta wasn't impressed at being upstaged by the weak human lady that was his adoptive mother-in-law and didn't understand why his son adored her. Mrs. Briefs wasn't a warrior. Guess it must goes against traditional Saiyan values to have any role models who aren't violent and male. Plus Vegeta thought the cookies that Mrs. Briefs made were too bland. He tried once to make a batch of spicy Saiyan style cookies but Trunks gagged on them. Oolong later stole most of those cookies for a very cruel prank that Master Roshi still grumbles about.

Overall, ChiChi being pregnant is about the best thing that could have happened for all of us. Because taking care of ChiChi made the rest of us feel better. It was kind of a healing time for everyone. We were all still hurt, still saddened but... Cooking lessons and food fights. Heh. We knew that Goku would have approved.

As if to confirm that thought... Before the year was over, ChiChi gave birth to a healthy little boy. Even as a newborn, the kid happened to be the spitting image of his father. His first name is Goten and his full name basically means that he was sent from heaven. He even smiles just like his dad used to, it's that exact same naive carefree smile. It was like having a smaller version of Goku smile at us. Broke our hearts and mended them at the same time. Kind of a reminder that your friends are only ever as dead as you make them, as you let them be. Goku was gone but his influence wasn't. We could keep his memory alive.

Of course now that we'd all made peace with that aspect of our lives, ChiChi was back on her feet and she realized for the first time precisely how much damage we'd done to her kitchen. She very politely suggested that in the future, perhaps we could hold our cooking experiments elsewhere. We did pool together to fund the kitchen remodeling so there's no hard feelings but...well...we just didn't seem to find much reason to get back together after that.

We all split again.

Before I close on this part, I want to mention two last things.

The first thing is Lunch. She hadn't fallen off the face of the Earth. She was just the CEO of her own trucking company by then and so she was busy all the time plus she traveled a lot. I think that she and Tenshinhan had been engaged for... Jeez, I dunno. Maybe longer than Gohan has been alive. By default, due the amount of time they've spent together, Lunch and Tenshinhan are legally considered married. They love each other to bits but they're both very private about that, their relationship is strictly just for them. The rest of us don't see evidence of it very often. I don't expect there to ever be a formal wedding since neither Tenshinhan nor Lunch feel that it's necessary. It's their view that a wedding ceremony tends to be more for the sake of friends and family than it is for the couple.

The second thing I wanted to mention is Yajirobe. We wouldn't hear much from him for the next several years. He - as well as Korin and Mister Popo - had (and still have...) their hands full educating Dende about the details of Earth culture. In the process, Yajirobe was promoted. He's an apprentice minor god now and will be taking over Korins Tower whenever Korin decides to officially retire. Note that I didn't say die. Korin is a minor god. He doesn't have to die to retire.

As the saying goes - it was the best of times, it was the worst of times... And there will be more next time. Heh. Don't worry though, we're almost to the end. Shouldn't be too many more parts left.

**ooxoo**


	25. Fall from grace

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 25: Fall from grace**

**I**t's a bit hard to write about the years when not much really happened. After the Cell Games were over, we had seven years that were mostly peaceful. The Earth wasn't endangered or anything. Everyone was just recovering.

And when I say everyone, I do mean everyone. We had made the wish to undo the damage left by Cell. That fixed a lot but it didn't fix everything. South Capital City was still a bloody mess. All the people that the androids had killed stayed dead. Androids 16, 19 and 20 also stayed dead. Android 19 had been killed by Vegeta, Android 20 had been killed by Android 17 and actually I'm not sure exactly why Android 16 wasn't revived.

The reason that Androids 17 and 18 had been brought back to life was because they had been killed by Cell. We didn't necessarily want them back. We had just wished for everyone that Cell had killed to be revived and poof - there they were. We hoped that 17 and 18 would be less evil now that the Cell Games were over. But we were all still wary of these two since they're the ones that future Trunks had gone out of his way to warn us about.

During the next couple years, Gohan started to hang around Krillen a LOT. Even Vegeta was visiting the Kame House on a regular basis. I know this because Krillen sometimes came to my house when he wanted to get away from them. He appreciated the Saiyans being protective of him but he also felt that he could defend himself if he had to. I figured that Krillen knew what he was doing so I left him alone for the most part. Krillen was age 31. He could make his own choices. He knows his limits.

Honestly, during those years Krillen and Android 18 were probably at my place more often than I was.

I was still age 34 after the Cell Games, going on age 35. Which isn't all that old but the media was starting to talk bad about me - saying I should retire. Apparently 35 is old in professional baseball. There was a lot of pressure both ways. Fans wanted me to stay but other baseball players were telling me that it was time to quit. They felt I should step down and let some of the younger kids have a chance. Said I should leave a couple records for other people to break.

Thus during these seven years, I started exploring other sports. I tried some other jobs. Not because I needed the money - I didn't - but just for something to do. Cause I'm one of those types of people that has to have something to do. I'd probably go insane if I was stuck around the house all the time. It's good to get out.

I was offered the traditional jobs. Most professional baseball players when they retire, they become coaches or announcers. Something that's related to sports but that is administrative. You don't play the game anymore, you do the paperwork. What I learned very quickly was that I'm not into paperwork. It just can't hold my interest. How do you people who work in cubicles all day stand it? I'm serious. I think offices are enough to make anyone claustrophobic. And office politics... Don't even get me started. Bleh.

Guess some people do like paperwork though. Oolong and Puar were our accountants at the time. Between them, the shapeshifters handled investments for Krillen, Master Roshi, ChiChi and I. They might have double checked things for Uranai Baba (she doesn't NEED anything double-checked, psychic as she is, but she does business this way just to prove how accurate she really is) and Capsule Corp as well. They helped us do our taxes - stuff like that. We paid them for their work. They earned it. Believe me, it was well worth it. Having an accountant that you can trust is always well worth it.

Puar used her wages to go to a human college. So I didn't see her quite as much because she was in school. She started out by taking classes that interested her - art, philosophy, criminal justice. Then she got serious and started working towards a degree in law. Yep. Puar was on her way to becoming a lawyer. Truthfully I'm proud of Puar and she knows that but it's all a bit weird. Then again - in my life, what isn't?

On a personal note, this was a difficult time for Puar. Attending a mostly human college... There was a lot of social pressure and debate. People weren't always nice to her. People didn't always treat her like she had a right to be there. Plus with working and school and study... The boyfriend that she'd been happily dating for the past several years, they began to drift apart. It's not my place to discuss the reasons but anything that upsets Puar is gonna upset me, by extension.

Just to be obnoxious, I remained a professional baseball player until I was 36. If the media hadn't given me so much crud about needing to retire then I probably wouldn't have made a point of staying around specifically to annoy them.

Trunks was age 3 at by the time I retired from baseball and Goten was age 2. The boys were too strong to be left with average people and their various guardians needed a break. Sometimes Puar and I were babysitters. Krillen or ChiChi would bring the kids over and Gohan would usually pick them up after school was out.

After Gotens birth, ChiChi just plain couldn't stand to be at her house. The kitchen being remodeled was likely a factor. Mostly though, all the stuff in the house reminded her of Goku and she didn't cope well with the loss. She moved in with Ox King at the family castle and she joined some social clubs to try to get her mind off things. It wasn't a bad plan, quite the opposite in fact, but ChiChi didn't always want to take Goten along to her club meetings and Ox King wasn't up to watching him.

Gohan was slowly adapting to being without his father again. Gohan was age 13 by then. He was attending public schools for the first time since he didn't like being around the house full of memories either. Bulma was - as always - busy with Capsule Corp stuff. Vegeta was perpetually training because Gohan could reach Super Saiyan level 2 and he couldn't. Vegeta seems to figure that it's his responsibility to be the strongest Saiyan in existence. I'd hear from the others occasionally. Oolong, Yajirobe and Master Roshi each visited a few times. Piccolo would sometimes show up. Tenshinhan, Lunch and Chaozu - they had mostly dropped out of contact, they moved a lot for some reason - but even they stopped by a couple times to see how things were going.

Honestly, there were days when my mansion seemed more like a hotel. It was awesome to put the space to good use and nice to have everyone around. The thing with mansions is that you feel so isolated sometimes. The desert where I grew up, I'd expected to be alone out there so it didn't bother me as much. A mansion in a city... It's weird how you can be surrounded by people yet still feel so profoundly cut off from everything.

Seems that at least Piccolo and Tenshinhan remained distrustful of the androids. From what I've been told, they each spent part of their free time keeping tabs on Android 17. Also Piccolo had started to spar with Vegeta because Goku was dead and nobody else really wanted to spar that much.

The most amazing thing though was Android 18. Aside from being nice to Krillen and fairly civil towards me, she became good friends with Puar and actually got along really well with the kids. Uhm. Not right away. She hated the kids at first but they kinda grew on her. Trunks thought she was cool because she had beaten up Vegeta once. Goten started calling her 'Auntie 18'.

The best advice I can give to anyone who is thinking about babysitting Saiyan kids is that you have to outnumber them. Then they'll listen to you. Young Trunks and Goten were typically havoc to be around when it was just Puar and I. When Krillen and 18 were there as well though, that made it easier. Sometimes all of us would go out together - we'd watch a baseball game or take the kids to an amusement park. It wasn't always fun so we didn't go out much, we usually just hung around the mansion and watched a video or played a board game. Because there were people who hated Android 18. Regular people who'd just walk up and start yelling at her, threatening her and getting all bent out of shape. Then there was the media, they came up with some insulting things too. We were even featured in a few tabloid headlines. Some people started assuming that Android 18 and I were a couple. Some took it a step further, they said that Goten and Trunks were our sons.

Gaaaah...

On days like that I'd wonder why I had ever bothered to save 'average' people. Sheesh. I mean, I can understand that people had reasons to be upset with 18 but yelling at her in public places wasn't going to change anything. And I'm not sure how the tabloids always seemed to ignore Krillen but those stupid headlines nearly got me killed on a few occasions. I had to convince 18 that I hadn't endorsed any of this - at first she thought I was the one that had given the media the impression we were a couple. Even Krillen sort of slipped away in terms of trusting me for a while.

My good celebrity reputation was more or less flushed down the toilet by all this 'scandal'. They went so far as to kick me out of the baseball hall of fame. I don't think they've ever done that to any other player before or since.

Yea. It was about as much fun as dental appointment some days. Sorry if I sound bitter but guess that I am. Once upon a time I thought the world was fair. Now I know better. Saving the world isn't enough to make you a hero anymore. You have to become something else, I don't really know what. I guess that's what the general public decides. And if they like you... Well, it's a trade off. You can either be what the world wants and have a ton of fans or be yourself and have a few good friends.

I fell off the hero list as far as the world was concerned. I didn't really care. I'd basically retired from that aspect of life anyway. Guess I'll never understand the general public. Apparently though, what the world wanted in a hero was a divorced guy that couldn't fight. Strange, eh? Ah well.

Mr. Satan had taken credit for killing Cell and saving the world. People believed him. Go figure. All of us were appalled by Mr. Satans claims. However it's safe to say that no one could have been more affected than Gohan.

By age 13, Gohan had been retired from fighting for two solid years. As far as we know, he didn't even spar anymore after the Cell Games. Yet while Gohan hadn't enjoyed the battle against Cell... He was even less fond of being overlooked. Gohan never said much about it but you could tell that the situation got on his nerves.

More than once, we offered various solutions. We could have gotten Gohan on television to make an announcement of his own. We could have arranged all kinds of humiliations for Mr. Satan. But Gohan refused our help. He just wanted to drop the subject, try to forget the past and move on with his life - or so he claimed. His attitude was very dark and sullen for a while. Gohan's entitled to have moods, of course, but it was always a little nerve-wracking to be around him. Because we'd seen what Gohan could do if he just snapped. And with as much as he seemed to internalize things... We couldn't be sure how close he was to snapping at any given moment. Android 18 flat out avoided Gohan. Young Goten and Trunks were afraid of him sometimes.

Things were generally a bit awkward between friends for a while. We hadn't split in the way we usually did. Most of us had kept in touch. Or rather, we could have kept in touch if we'd wanted to. I dunno if this bugs anyone else but it bugs me.

It was the summer of 770 A.D. when Krillen and Android 18 decided to get married. They had a nice little semi-informal outdoor ceremony that they were both nervous about. Krillen was age 34 at his wedding and he'd let his hair grow back for the occasion. At first it was sort of odd to see him with hair because he'd always been bald before but hey, whatever works. I suspect that after the wedding, he decided to keep his hair since 18 thought it was cute. At the time though Krillen just said that it meant he'd retired from fighting.

I was there and age 37. I'd brought Trunks, he was age 4. Master Roshi was age 340. Puar and Oolong were both 29ish but closing on 30 fast. Puar...age 30...jeez. You have no idea how old that makes me I feel. To think I've known Puar since she was 7. Anyway. ChiChi was only 33 but she looked older - stress had done that to her. She brought Goten along, he was age 3 by then. Ox King and Umigame were each there but I'm not sure of their ages. The kids behaved, so did Roshi and on the day of the ceremony the weather was beautiful. We'd been worried a bit about the weather since the wedding was being held outside and the previous days had been stormy but Dende took care of that. Yea, Dende was there as well. I don't know who had explained the concept of marriage to Dende but he was remarkably well informed about human traditions by then. Dende gave his blessing to the couple. The main ceremony itself was performed by a monk from Orinji Temple, some elderly fellow that had been one of Krillens very first senseis.

Overall it was...well... Bittersweet, I suppose. Not a bad experience. I just don't know where everyone else was. Except for Goku, he was dead. I knew that. But everyone else... I kind of feel that we let Krillen down. Believe me, I understand what it's like to be busy. But after everything this group has been through, that they couldn't even show up... Hope Krillen doesn't resent the rest of us too much because of this. I do sort of get the impression that certain absences offended him.

Moving on... Most newly-wed couples would probably look into getting their own house. Krillen and 18 didn't need to. They already had four sets of house keys: the Kame House, my place, Android 17s home and the Son house. ChiChi had entrusted them with keys to her home since she was living with Ox King. While none of the homes were truly theirs, Krillen and 18 took care of at least the Kame House. That had made them realize how much work owning a home was. Besides, the group that lives at the Kame House is essentially family. Roshi considers Krillen a son and Krillen feels like he should take care of the guy that he has basically accepted as a foster father. I really think that if Krillen and 18 had moved out then Roshi would have eventually moved into their house.

Homes aside, the couple had also helped to take care of other peoples kids for the past three years. Goten and Trunks. Don't get me wrong. Krillen and 18 love each other tons but I think they might have put off getting married if they hadn't wanted their own child. And for the record - because 18 is an android - they had been expecting that they'd have to adopt a kid. It was something they'd talked about before they were married.

A few weeks after the honeymoon, we were all kind of startled to learn that they wouldn't have to adopt after all. I don't think Krillens ever been so proud in his entire life. Android 18 was as surprised as the rest of us.

Initially 18 acted like she hated the attention but that's just because she probably didn't know how else to act. ChiChi is the mother of two, she knows about these things and gave some advice. ChiChi is the stubborn type that says what she means and doesn't sugarcoat the facts. 18 appreciated that. Those two are about like sisters now.

The hardest part, from what I've heard, was finding a doctor that was willing to accept 18 as a patient. There are many different species and humanoids in our world but pregnant androids are apparently a minority. The doctors were reluctant to accept a patient that they weren't certain how to care for. Hospitals - who didn't like 18 anyway, since all her internal computers tended to mess up their equipment if they tried to do an ultrasound or any other type of scan - felt that having an android around would just upset the other patients. One place actually told 18 to just go to a car mechanic. Other places decided that an android would only be able to deliver a stillborn so there wasn't any point in trying to offer care. Needless to say, those hospitals have had some staff changes since then. We wouldn't tolerate anything else. ChiChi fixed this situation by taking 18 to a well-respected but difficult to track down doctor. We should mention that in order to get this appointment, ChiChi had dusted off one of the gigantic battleaxes that she inherited from her family. She carried this massive sinister looking weapon casually, slung over one shoulder and was completely polite to everyone as she determinedly marched 18 into care. After this, ChiChi and her axe were in attendance at all of 18s appointments. The doctor, a woman, turned out to be a kind enough person that she might have accepted 18 as a patient anyway but ChiChi and the axe certainly kept all the medical assistants from trying to challenge 18s right to be there.

Krillen was not invited to most of those appointments, by the way. Android 18 was nervous about how her insides would look - because they weren't going to look like a normal humans insides - and so when it came to her appointments, she usually wanted some space where no guys were allowed. Krillen respected her request. He spent a lot of time reading parenting books and wandering around in gift stores. He was torn between spoiling his wife rotten and abruptly wanting to get a job. We reminded him that he was a 34 year old millionaire because of tournament prize money and good investments. He said the money wasn't the point, he just wanted to be a good role model for the kid. Eesh. That's Krillen for you. Oolong, Puar and I all told him to relax. We promised him that if he still wanted a job after the kid was born then we'd find him something.

Speaking of jobs... By age 37, I had tried and walked away from the professional team sports. Baseball had been fun while it lasted but I didn't want be on a team anymore. It's generally my experience that the less people you're responsible for, the better. After all the only way to really find and test your limits is to get out there by yourself.

There are hundreds of independent sports. Running is technically a sport - but how many professional runners can you name? No, I didn't care about fame or anyones opinion anymore. It's just that if a sport is semi-popular then it is also better developed.

I tried a few more things and decided to eliminate opponents, I didn't want a sport that required a human opponent anymore. Which meant that all the racing-type sports were out. People who play sports for a living, most of them tend to take things too seriously for my tastes. I've had enough enemies in my lifetime. I didn't care to make more.

Further experiments revealed that being capable of flying basically takes the thrill out of most the 'extreme' sports. And I crossed hunting and fishing off the list because those types of things can never really be a sport to anyone who has ever had to do them for survival.

What I was left with in the end was one sport that, in my opinion anyway, is perfect. Golf.

There's a lot of appeal to the sport. Golf has got a lot of things going for it. You get out there and there are no teams, no weird looking mascots or perky cheerleaders. You don't have to deal with multiple coaches or referees. The commercial sponsors of golf aren't anywhere near as pushy as they are in other sports and the media doesn't pay as much attention to you. There is a dress code for professional golfers but a dress code is a step up from a required uniform. At least with a dress code there's still some room for individual expression and so forth. The crowds at golf tournaments are small compared to other sports. The fans are not quite as likely to start a riot - which is a nice change. You don't feel like you're trapped in a stadium. You don't feel rushed. None of those distractions. No slippery artificial turf either, the grass on the ground is always real. And even if there are other players, your main opponent is always the golf course. Thus golf manages to be a challenging game without losing its more mellow attitude. Just the change of pace I was looking for.

Plus I couldn't help but notice that professional golfers are all ages. You don't have to retire by a certain age, there really isn't a cutoff. If you're still playing pro golf when you're truly old then they just stick you on the seniors tour.

Keep in mind that in our world, some people - like Master Roshi - live to be over 400 years old. I doubt that I'll still be around in 400 years but if I stay in good shape then I probably could live past 100. I mention this because in our world, you have to be at least age 85 to get on the pro golf seniors tour. I've been told that in your world, the people age differently. That the average lifespan is only around age 70 in some of the better developed countries. So in your world, if you wanted to, you could probably try to get on the seniors golf tour before you were 85.

I was nearly 38 when I started playing golf. Like baseball and most the other sports, there's a season for golf. So you only get invited to play the game at a professional level for a few weeks out of the year. Although if you're really ambitious and qualify for some of the bigger tournaments then you can travel the world and follow the seasons. It's always summer somewhere, that's the theory. So you can work as much as you want. You spend the rest of the time practicing. Since golf is an independent sport, it's up to each player to decide when and if they want to practice. You are your own boss. If you want a coach then you can hire one - but you can choose to be your own coach, as well. The option is at least there. You don't have to have anyone else scheduling things or making all the decisions for you.

Which means that you can still have free time. I've enjoyed getting back to a more relaxed pace because it's hard to enjoy things when you always feel hurried. Did you notice? I mentioned an important word: _invited. _Yeah. In professional golf, you get invited to the events. That's how different golf is. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for baseball. Baseball has been good to me. But all those years that I had played baseball - we were just told where we were going next and who we would be playing against. It was like being given orders. The team might be officially welcomed, sometimes and expected, at other times or chased out of town by the fans of a rival team, once in awhile... But we were never really invited. And it's one of those little things that maybe doesn't seem like it should make a difference - but it did. Wouldn't you enjoy your work more - and perhaps even feel more appreciated there - if you got a personalized invitation to come to work? Even just once in awhile, wouldn't that be nice?

Honestly though, I think the worst thing about being a pro baseball player was the way that job ate my schedule. That sport had more or less owned me for about ten years. I hadn't gotten many chances to just be myself, hang out with friends or develop hobbies. It was great to finally be able to do all that. I was able to help Puar study for her tests. I was able to get the whole house cleaned up. I even made it back to check on the condition of the desert hideout.

That first time I went back to the hideout, I was up to my knees in sand. The place had been ignored for a few years so the sand had gotten into everything. A real mess. Restoring the hideout became a hobby for me.

Trunks was still being left in my care a lot and so was Goten. Neither of them could fly yet but they'd run all over the place. They made sand forts in the desert and played catch if I took them to a golf course. The boys thought it was fun to catch the golf balls and then return the balls to people. The golfers didn't usually agree.

In an attempt to distract the boys, I introduced them to miniature golf. For those of you who don't know - miniature golf is accurately named. It's just regular golf on a much smaller course. Since the golf course is so small, there are more traps and obstacles added to increase the difficulty of each shot. You have to hit the golf ball a certain way to get it to go through a windmill or something like that. At first, the kids were okay with this. Because of their abnormal strength... The main challenge for the boys was to hit the golf ball gently. Just hitting the ball so that it remained intact and on the course took practice. Hence it was a while before the actual obstacles posed any serious threat. Eventually, though, the boys got the hang of the game. But there were one or two obstacles that they just could not get past.

Once, Trunks became really frustrated. So he hit the golf ball too hard and at a bad angle. The golf ball - with the way he swatted that ball, it's a miracle the thing didn't split into pieces - bounced off something, came flying back at him and decked Trunks upside the head.

Trunks was age 5 by then. He went ballistic. He also went Super Saiyan. He'd probably done it before but that was the first time I'd ever seen him transform. Goten was nearly age 4 and he considered Trunks an older brother. So he had to imitate everything Trunks did. Sure enough, Goten transformed as well.

It was kinda scary that these two kids could have already learned to transform. But at the same time, they weren't as dangerous as I'd expected. The only way to explain this is to say that Super Saiyan multiples a warriors power. The more power you have before the transformation, the more power you gain because of the transformation - it's one of those deals. Thankfully, Trunks and Goten didn't have huge power levels at the time. So even after they went Super Saiyan, I was still a match for them powerwise. Besides they didn't have any fighting experience or much reason to fight. After Trunks had destroyed the obstacle that had been the source of his frustration, he calmed down and dropped out of Super Saiyan mode. Goten followed suit.

I didn't mind covering the repair bill for the golf course since it had been my idea to bring the kids. What got on my nerves was how easily Trunks and Goten could have injured other people. They aren't bad kids - I don't think they would have attacked anyone without having a reason to fight - but even just accidentally, they could have really hurt someone. They had gone Super Saiyan over something as petty as a miniature golf score. It just seemed wrong. There are better ways of dealing with frustration.

We had a talk. What I realized was that the boys had probably only transformed because they didn't have any attacks. No one had explained personal energy to them. They didn't know the kamehameha or anything like that. All that Trunks and Goten had were regular punches and kicks. And the boys had to power up to Super Saiyan to make those basic attacks strong enough to damage things like golf courses.

Goten and Trunks promised to be more careful in the future. They confided that they weren't sure how long they'd been able to transform. I was left with the impression that the boys had needed to defend themselves from a wild animal at some point and that was probably the first time each of them had gone Super Saiyan. Maybe they had been left outside to play and had wandered off. I'm not sure.

Anyway. I didn't feel that it was my place to teach the boys any attacks. I was hoping that they'd never need to fight. The world had been fairly peaceful for the past four years. Even if a threat had come, there were still enough adult warriors to hopefully spare the kids from joining the battle.

Later that same year, 771 A.D., Marron was born. Her parents had found out ahead of time that they were having a girl but everyone had been curious about what species the baby would be. Would Marron be an android like her mother? On the other hand, androids are technically human. So maybe the kid would be fully human? As it turns out, Marron is half android. It's not something you can tell by looking at her though. Guess she has robot DNA. Between that and being Krillens kid, Marron inherited the potential to be as dangerous as a demi-saiyan. The key word here is _potential_. As in, if you don't encourage the skill then it won't happen. 18 and Krillen didn't plan to encourage Marrons warrior potential.

Krillen and 18 settled down at the Kame House in order to raise Marron peacefully. They still visited ChiChis home, Android 17s home and my place but not as often. They were preoccupied with the new addition to their family. Plus they were afraid that Trunks and Goten were too rough for Marron to be safe around.

For anyone wondering - the only job that Krillen got after Marrons birth was being a full time dad. Next to that, other jobs just didn't seem important.

I admire that. A lot. In fact, I envy it a little bit. Kinda wish that my parents had been that way. I don't remember my parents much but I figure that they didn't exactly have their priorities straight - how else could I have ended up alone in the desert? I wish everyone in the world could afford to stay home with their kids. All the lives that would be different if only people could just value their time with each other... Eh. I suppose that's too idealistic to ever become a reality. You've got to take the good with the bad to keep things balanced, right?

**ooxoo**


	26. Weirdness never dies

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 26: Weirdness never dies**

**P**uar graduated from human college in the fall of 772 A.D. That's the next major event in our lives. Her class credits from the Shapeshifter Academy had carried over so she'd been able to get a Masters degree - which usually takes at least six years - after only three years of study. Puar was age 32 when she graduated with full honors. She will probably always look age seven.

The graduation ceremony was nice. That's a huge understatement. It was a sunny outdoor catered affair, decorated in good taste and all that. But the atmosphere at a graduation, that's the real crown jewel of the whole event. You're around all these people who have accomplished things, people that still have ambitions and dreams. Isn't that amazing? After everything this planet has been put through - that there are still people who can dream big about making the world a better place. People who feel like they can make difference. And they believe it so deeply that their optimism is contagious.

I seriously feel that everyone should go to at least one graduation ceremony in their life. Skip college if you want but at least go to one graduation, it doesn't have to be yours. And stay around for the reception. Talk to everybody. The experience has got to be one of the most potent anti-depressants in existence and you don't even need a prescription for it.

It's one of those things that you wish would last forever but of course, nothing lasts forever.

The graduation was in 772 A.D. I haven't seen much of Puar since. Sometimes I catch glimpses of her but she's usually on her way to work or she just got in from work and is going to bed. These days I'm lucky if I see Puar for five whole minutes. There have been entire months where the only evidence I've had that Puar was still alive were the clients who kept leaving her messages on our answering machine.

Puars degree is in law. She did become a lawyer. She loves the work and she's in high demand. Not that Puar isn't brilliant but the main reason for her success is simple: she's a cat. She's not human. In our world, some of the animal species evolved alongside the humans. Oolong, Korin and Puar are not the only animals on the planet that speak human languages and walk upright. Think about that. If you were say, an elephant, who would you want to represent you in court? A human or a cat? Right. A cat. The majority of Puars clients are animals because the dogs, cats, birds and other creatures of the world trust a cat who is a lawyer more than they trust a human lawyer. I think there are maybe ten other non-human lawyers on this planet. Don't know why there aren't more. Guess that law isn't a field of study that interests animals very often.

I'm so proud of Puar that I can hardly put it into words. And of course I'm happy for her too. It's great that she has a career she loves, something that gives her a real sense of purpose and fulfillment. I wouldn't want to take that away from her. I wouldn't change Puar for anything. She's good at what she does and she deserves to be happy. I just wish that I could see her more often sometimes. I kinda miss her being around.

Darn kids grow up so fast.

Living alone in a mansion... Well, aside from being ridiculous - it's lonely. I was 39 and I couldn't stand it anymore. So I moved into a smaller house. I didn't actually sell the mansion since Krillen and 18 still hung out there. I just packed up and left. I live on the outskirts of West Capital City now. It's only a few blocks from one of the better golf courses. Technically, Puar still lives with me. She's got her own room with all her stuff at the smaller house. It's just her stuff though, not her. I avoid her room as much as possible. Maybe it's morbid but there are days when I feel like she's dead and her room is sort of a memorial, all I have left to remember her by. Wonder if this is the kinda hell I put Puar through when I was a pro baseball player and active hero. Jeez...

Isn't it odd how even when you have other friends, the loss of one can make you feel so isolated?

Believe it or not, I do in fact have other friends. People that I golf with sometimes. People that I just hang out with. One of the guys who I golf with used to leave me death threats on a daily basis. We joke about that. It's weird how these things work out. Truthfully though, there are a lot of good people in my life - neighbors, former coworkers, penpals and fans. So it's probably strange that I could feel lonely at all. But I'm tellin ya, life is just not the same without Puar around.

I honestly didn't dwell on it as much as I make it sound like I did. I definitely noticed the change of lifestyle but I was keeping busy enough that I didn't have much time for dwelling on things. And it's not a romantic longing or anything either. It's just that when you've lived with someone for over 25 years then you miss them. Yep. It's as simple as that.

Loneliness can make you do some pretty bizarre things. Enuff said.

... Oh all right. No, I didn't do anything THAT weird. Jeez, get your mind out of the gutter. I know it was there. How do I know? Well, see - I've got this thing called a computer... Yep. I went online. I discovered internet fanfiction. And all I'm gonna say is that some of you people scare me. Congrats.

While we're on the subject of bizarre, let's mention Gohan. Because in 773 A.D. he started to do something that we'd never seen him do before: he acted like a kid. Not a genius kid, not a monster, not somebody with a power level that could endanger the planet. Just a regular little kid. In 773 A.D. Gohan was age 17 but mentally he'd just turned age five or something. I suppose it must be a coping skill, there isn't any other explanation that makes sense. It was great to see him in a halfway decent mood for once but... Yea. Weird. Understand that by then, we were all just automatically on edge anytime that Gohan got within a ten mile radius of us. We weren't used to him acting this way. ChiChi worried that her first born son had gone off the deep end. Goten moved into the Kame House for a while because he was too scared to go home.

If Goten is anybodys kid, he's Krillen and ChiChis. We've all raised Goten a bit but no one more than those two. Goku was deceased after all but Krillen didn't miss his best friend as much when Goten was around. Trunks on the other hand... I'm not a blood relative but he's more or less my son. Anyway. That's why Goten stayed at the Kame House - the kid considers Krillen his dad.

Gohan is a tad more complicated. He knows who his blood parents are but he wasn't really raised that much by either of them. Ox King, Piccolo, Vegeta and Krillen have all raised Gohan a bit yet he doesn't answer to any of them if they pull rank. Gohan loves his parents and he respects the rest of us but we have very little authority over him. So when Gohan started acting different, we had to go to the one creature that Gohan considers both a friend and an authority figure. Dende.

I know. You're thinking: "DENDE?!" That's what I thought too but it fits together. Remember how Dende was stranded on Earth after the original planet Namek blew up? Yea, well, apparently he and Gohan became good friends during that time. Dende and Gohan act like siblings around each other. They're probably closer than Goten and Gohan will ever be.

By 773 A.D., Dende had been our Kami for seven years. That's 21 years by the Namekian calendar. During that time, Dende had grown up - both physically and mentally. He was now almost as tall as Piccolo. He was also much more educated about Earth and didn't view being god as an adventure anymore. Dende took his duties seriously. He'd been helping Gohan try to cope with everything since the Cell Games. So now that we were worried about Gohan, we asked Dende if he knew what was going on. He did. But he wouldn't tell us. Dende said not to worry about it. In retrospect, I think Dende knew exactly what the future held. If he had told us then we wouldn't have understood it for another year and a half. But he must have told Gohan part of it. Probably the part about Goku being reincarnated.

Gohan abruptly started training again. He cheerfully thrashed anyone who would spar with him. Most of us didn't. Even Vegeta came up with excuses. So Gohan sparred on his own. Quite frankly, we have no idea why he wasn't the first to reach Super Saiyan level 3.

What you have to understand about the Tenkaichi Budoukai is that it's such a massive tournament that they typically announce it at least a few years in advance. Because people have to get ready for it. They have to train and journey from whatever corner of the world they're in to the tournament stadium. The 25th Tenkaichi Budoukai was announced in 773 A.D. and that was considered short notice because the tournament was scheduled for May 7th, 774 A.D.

At least Krillen, Master Roshi, Piccolo, ChiChi, Oolong and I immediately tried to talk Gohan out of entering the tournament. We didn't know anything about Buu at the time. We were worried for a whole different reason. That reason is named Mr. Satan.

Mr. Satan had won the 24th tournament, he was gonna be the defending tournament champion. Gohan was gearing up to utterly cream the guy. He could have utterly creamed the guy without training but apparently the thought of vengeance had put Gohan in the mood to train. Gradually, between all of us, we managed to convince Gohan that murdering an obnoxious guy on international television was not going to make anything better. After all, the general public still considered Mr. Satan a hero. If Gohan had gone through with it, he would have automatically become public enemy number one.

This lead to a new weird behavior. In 774 A.D. Gohan became a super hero, a crimefighter. The Great Sayaman or something like that. He did it mostly because he could. However Gohan also did it because he hoped to become the new hero of the world. Because once he was the world champion, he could get away with murder. Literally.

I've mentioned that you don't wanna ever tick Gohan off, right? Okay. Good. Glad we're clear on that.

Being as he was age 18 though, Gohan valued the opinions of people his own age. His school peers must have thought that super heroes were stupid. I don't know. But Gohan didn't want any of his friends to figure out that he was the Great Sayaman. That's why he had Bulma make him a costume to disguise his identity. The costume was...uhm...yea. Corny. Well. Maybe it was just corny to those of us who could detect energy signatures since we knew that it was Gohan anyway. Trunks was age 8 that year and Goten was age 7. After seeing Gohan in costume, they were suitably confused.

Oh and by the way, the boys had held to their promise to be careful about going Super Saiyan. Trunks and Goten had both kept their transformation a secret for the past three years. That's impressive. How many little kids do you know who can keep a secret for that long? In addition to me, only ChiChi had found out. Krillen, Bulma and Roshi all suspected that the boys were hiding something but nobody else knew. I guess Gohan was a bit surprised to learn of Gotens power. And Trunks says that Vegeta wasn't exactly thrilled.

I'm not even going to pretend to have any idea what Uranai Baba had been doing. I hadn't seen or heard much of anything about her for the past 21 years. All I know is that Uranai Baba showed up at the Son house one day. She didn't even say anything, she just looked the place over then nodded and left. Goten and Trunks had never in their lives seen a full fledged witch before so they weren't sure what to make of this.

Neither was I until the next day, when Krillen called me. He said that Gohan had just been at the Kame House and that the tournament was on because Goku was going to be there. I didn't believe it at first.

Even with Dende in charge, the dragonballs still have limits. If someone has been dead for more than a year then you can't wish them back with the dragonballs. Of course, that's when it comes in handy to be friends with a couple gods and a five hundred-and-thirty-something year old witch. Goku had been dead for seven years. We couldn't wish Goku back to life. But Uranai Baba could reincarnate him for 24 hours. I think that in the future, maybe we should just ask Baba for help. She must dwarf the dragonballs in terms of magical ability. Although we'd probably have to invent a special radar to track her, that lady is elusive. Seriously. Uranai Baba could make even someone like Piccolo seem social by comparison.

Speaking of Piccolo, he decided to enter the 25th Tenkaichi Budoukai. When I heard the news I hoped that Piccolo knew what the heck he was getting into. Within the week, more announcements were made. Goten, Trunks, Vegeta, Gohan, Goku, Krillen and Android 18 were all definitely entering the tournament. Android 17 had been invited to the tournament by his sister.

The first thought that came to mind was that I didn't envy Mr. Satan. The second thought was that with contenders like that, there was no way I was going to enter the tournament. I was age 41, in good shape and all but definitely past my prime as far as martial arts went. I wasn't even sure that I wanted to watch the tournament since I was half expecting it to turn into a bloodbath, albeit a small one. Vegeta and Piccolo both still distrusted 18 so there was tension there. Androids 18 and 17 had some grudges between them - it's entirely possible that 18 invited her brother with the hope of drawing a match against him. Not to mention that Gohan could easily reduce Mr. Satan to a pile of cinders.

At least Master Roshi and I tried to figure out where Tenshinhan and Chaozu were. Just in case. But we couldn't find them.

There are a lot of reasons for why I ended up going to watch the tournament. The main one is that people asked me to be there. Master Roshi was nervous about the whole event. Goten and Trunks wanted me to watch them win. Krillen and 18 were both entering the tournament so they needed someone to watch Marron. Plus I was curious to see if Goku would really be there.

May 7th, 774 A.D. arrived all too soon. The 25th Tenkaichi Budoukai got underway. Tenshinhan wasn't there nor was Chaozu and Android 17 never came. But Goku was indeed alive again and for some reason, evil things seem to follow him around. May 7th was a long day. I'll have to tell you about it next time.

**ooxoo**


	27. 25th Tenkaichi Budoukai

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 27: 25th Tenkaichi Budoukai**

**W**hen you're a warrior in a tournament, you tune the audience out. You ignore them. You focus completely on the arena so that you are aware of what your opponent is doing. You never really pause to realize how huge the stadium is, how many people are there. You never really stop to think about anything beyond the fight. There isn't a chance to because you have to be able to react to your opponents attacks. You don't have time for memories.

I finally did have time for memories. Because I wasn't participating. I was just going to be a spectator at the World Tournament, which was something that I hadn't done since the age of nine. I got to the stadium before the rest of the group and had a chance to look around. It was amazing what the architects had done with the place. Keep in mind that the last time I'd seen the stadium was after the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai, when it had been reduced to a pile of smoldering rubble. So this Tenkaichi Budoukai... Was not held in the same stadium where I'd fought in the past. It was all new. Well. To me it was new, anyway. The 24th Budoukai had been held there.

The structures had all changed. The layout of the buildings. Stuff that had previously been in trailers and huts around the old stadium was now all inside the new stadium. Because the new stadium was huge. More parking. More arenas. Better seating for spectators. More emergency exits. A retractable dome roof. A lot of hi-tech additions. There never used to be surround sound or electronic scoreboards or gigantic tvs mounted in the corners. Despite everything that had changed... The whole place still has this awe-inspiring feel to it. Because most of the fighters that are entering the tournament have trained really hard just to get this far. They've won other tournaments and have been elected to represent their district. For average humans, the Tenkaichi Budoukai had remained the ultimate test of martial arts skill. The point of no return, make it or break it time. All that. The warriors that come here have something to fight for, something to prove. The prize money is nice but, at least for the truly serious fighters, it's the principle of the thing that makes the tournament so important to the world.

Stop to consider some of the events that have happened at past Tenkaichi Budoukais. The old stadium has been ripped apart, god has been defeated in this arena and a bunch of warriors capable of shooting energy beams have more or less killed the chances of anyone 'normal' winning. Yet the tournament still happens. Granted, it's not what it used to be. The festivals, parades and formal ceremonies that used to take place on the island when the tournament lasted for at least a month, we haven't gotten all of that back. But people still train for this and look forward to this. If nothing else, perhaps the Tenkaichi Budoukai represents the stubborness of the human race. Which makes the Budoukai all the more amazing.

I got there early but I wasn't the only one there. People had been camping around the stadium for weeks. I overheard enough talk to know that the warriors were there for one of two reasons. Either they wanted to see Mr. Satan win or they wanted a chance to beat the crud out of Mr. Satan. Quite a few of the human warriors entering the Budoukai didn't believe that Mr. Satan could save the world from anything, much less Cell. These warriors didn't necessarily hate Mr. Satan but they did want to replace him as the hero of Earth. They wanted the fame and fortune.

All these people figured that the 25th tournament would be a breeze. After all, the 24th Tenkaichi Budoukai had been so pitiful that Mr. Satan had won it.

The horrified looks on those peoples faces when Goku showed up... That was priceless. Uranai Baba was with him and her presence generated almost as much commotion as Gokus did. She reminded Goku that he only had twenty-four hours to live and then she departed.

Android 18 and Vegeta each got interesting reactions when they arrived. The reactions to Piccolo were a little more pronounced since there were a few warriors present who remembered the damage that Piccolo had done at the 23rd tournament. Even Krillen, who was by now considered a veteran of the tournament and Master Roshi - who will always be remembered for blowing up the moon at the 21st Tenkaichi Budoukai - scared some people off with their arrivals. So the preliminary fights hadn't even started but our group had already begun eliminating contenders. Just by showing up.

Nobody ran away at the sight of Gohan though. Because nobody outside of our group had a clue about how dangerous Gohan was. In fact, nobody outside of our group actually knew that Gohan was there. Why? Well. Some of Gohans classmates had tickets to watch the tournament. Gohan wanted these people to continue believing that he was normal. Probably made his life easier if regular people didn't know what he was capable of. So instead of entering the tournament under his real name... Gohan was there as the Great Sayaman. Costume and all. Though he had to replace the helmet with a bandanna and dark sunglasses since tournament rules didn't allow helmets. Don't know why the Budoukai officials allowed sunglasses. Perhaps Master Roshi had influenced that rule, ages ago.

To be honest with you, I don't understand why Gohan bothered with the costume. True - it meant that his classmates wouldn't instantly recognize him but... Goten was there. Gohan might not have told any of his friends much about his parents but I'm sure that at least a handful of them knew that Goten was Gohans little brother. So what would these people think if Goten started flying around and using energy attacks? Wouldn't that make them suspicious about Gohans abilities? Plus we were all calling Gohan by his name so it wasn't like he had much in the way of a secret identity going for him.

A few awkward moments passed while the group gathered and everyone got registered. This was the first time that Gohan, Vegeta, Goten, Trunks and Android 18 had ever entered a Tenkaichi Budoukai and it was only the second time for Piccolo. So the rest of us had to explain the procedures to them. There was a bit of a fiasco with the punching machine (translation: Vegeta punched it. They're probably still looking for it.) but other than that, the registration went fine.

For the 25th Tenkaichi Budoukai, Gohan was age 18. Vegeta was 44. ChiChi was 37. Piccolo was age 22 in Earth years. Trunks was 8. Goten was 7. Marron was 3 and Master Roshi was 344. Goku and Krillen were both age 38. Bulma and I were both age 41. I have no idea what Android 18s age is but I'd wild guess she must have been around 30.

While gathering, we had all noticed a couple guys in the crowd. These guys had the capital letter M tattooed on their foreheads. Something seemed off about them but we couldn't place what, so we let it go. At the time we felt that maybe they were members of a band or a cult or something. We weren't expecting any serious trouble. If only Chaozu had been there, he would have been able to read their minds and that would have meant so much. We could have at least begun to evacuate the stadium. Although I suppose that ultimately, that wouldn't have done us any good either. Still. Would have been nice to have had more warning.

This is the trouble with being paranoid, for anyone taking notes: it's hard to stop. Based on our past experiences with mysterious tournament contenders, we could have leapt to the conclusion that the M-guys were bad. We could have killed them on the spot - just based on the way they looked. And you know, if we had run across these M-guys right after dealing with Cell... Then we might have been more tempted to just confront them right away or even kill them outright. But Cell had been seven years ago. You can't tiptoe around for seven years being deeply suspicous of everyone and convinced that the whole universe is scheming against you. Well, okay. Maybe Vegeta or Piccolo could, if they wanted to. But a normal mind works differently, when someone is fighting for survival. And it's not actually healthy to stay in that survival mode for too long. The rest of us had to learn to let go of these types of fears in order to remain semi-sane and functional in our daily lives.

After Goku had arrived - he was the last to join us - we tried to fill him in on the events of the last seven years. There was a lot to tell him and I don't think that any of it really sunk in, it was too much at once. Goku probably didn't know what to make of it all. He was glad to see us again but weirded out in general by the whole experience.

Goku didn't seem to have aged much but he'd mellowed out considerably. He was a lot more serious than I'd ever seen him and he also was kinda distant. I got the distinct impression that he was only asking questions to be polite, as if he didn't actually care that much about the answers. The underlying feeling was that during the seven years of being dead, Goku had outgrown us. He'd moved on. He still cared about his family and friends - but to a lesser degree. He knew that we could survive without him and vice versa.

Android 18 and Goku met each other for the first time. They hadn't met before since Goku'd been beaten up by Android 19, then he'd been sick and by the time Goku had been well enough to fight again - 18 had been absorbed into Cell. So Goku was surprised to learn that 18 had been married to Krillen for the past four years and that they had a three year old daughter. Goku was also amazed by how much Gohan had grown up and fairly confused by the superhero costume. Nothing affected Goku quite as much being introduced to Goten though. Goku had died without knowing that ChiChi was pregnant. If he'd known then he probably wouldn't have chosen to remain dead. Let's leave it at that.

We could have dwelled on the subject longer except that Goten and Trunks had to leave. Goten seemed grateful to no longer be the center of attention. The boys were entering the kids tournament - a new concept for the Tenkaichi Budoukai - which was going to take place before the adult rounds started. We all went to watch. Well, most of us did. Goku and ChiChi stayed behind for a bit because they wanted to talk. The rest of us respected their need for privacy.

Trunks and Goten proceeded to make short work of several kids who were older than them. The age limit was 15 or 16 - I don't remember right off. Sometimes I pause and wonder just how much this day could have been different if everyone under the age of eighteen had been in the kids tournament. Because if the kid tournament had been for everyone age eighteen and under... Then Gohan and Videl would have been part of the kids tournament. Might have upset them to be considered 'kids' but maybe it could have changed how things worked out. Just a thought.

Marron was watching the tournament with us. She felt that Goten and Trunks were just showing off and added that she could probably kick their butts any day of the week. Uh...yea. Marron is definitely her mothers child. Krillen always tries to remind Marron that beating people up isn't nice while Android 18 wants their daughter to be able to defend herself. Marron generally isn't interested in fighting but if she had to, she probably could. I don't know if she'd be able to beat up Trunks or Goten but I'm guessing that she wouldn't have too much trouble against a regular human.

It became obvious early on that the final match of the kids tournament was going to be Trunks vs. Goten. Goku and ChiChi joined the rest of us in time to argue about who would win that battle. The boys had sparred against each other for most of their lives so their power levels were close and their fighting styles were similar. Master Roshi hoped that the kids wouldn't demolish the stadium and Vegeta remarked that the absence of the stadium wouldn't prevent him from winning the adult tournament. Goku grinned about that comment and promised that he wasn't going to let anyone win easily.

For a split second, almost everyone in our group was tense because we expected Vegeta and Goku to start beating the snot out of each other right then and there. Thankfully Trunks and Goten both went Super Saiyan as they faced off. The boys had promised not to go super, I guess, since it wouldn't be fair to their opponents and since they really just didn't need the added power against regular kids. But when that last match came and they were against each other, they knew that going super wasn't an unfair advantage now and so they used the transformation. This caught Gokus attention because he hadn't been aware that the boys could do that. In the end, Trunks and Goten managed to knock each other out at the exact same time. So the fight ended in a draw, they were both declared winners. The boys had probably planned on doing that. Goten and Trunks were practically brothers - they wouldn't have been able to enjoy their victory without sharing it.

Mr. Satan was supposed to spar with the kid that won the kids tournament. That's just how it was planned. A publicity stunt. Of course, Mr. Satan came up with some excuse not to fight Goten and Trunks. We didn't pay much attention to that because the adults were leaving the stands and preparing for their tournament to get underway. Gohan, Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, Krillen and Android 18 headed for the sidelines of the arena to find out who their first matches would be against. I was left with Marron. Roshi, ChiChi and Bulma were sitting nearby.

Trunks and Goten never joined us. They should have. I didn't have to wonder where they'd gone though. Being able to sense energy signatures is a very useful talent sometimes. Apparently the boys had decided to enter the adult tournament in costume. Roshi and I were tempted to go down there and drag the boys to their seats - however it wasn't our responsibility to do that. ChiChi and Bulma were both right there. Plus Gohan, Goku and Vegeta were all down by the fighters. Any of them could have told Trunks and Goten to stay out of the adult tournament but they didn't. It's not like they needed to, either. Trunks and Goten would be okay against the adult warriors, as long they didn't draw a match against anyone they knew.

The announcer began listing off matches and the one that caught everyones attention was Goku vs. Vegeta. Bulma and ChiChi had to debate who the winner in that one would be and I was happy to think that Krillen might have a shot at winning the tournament after all. He'd at least place.

Krillen had been pitted against a regular guy while the Saiyans had been pitted against each other right off the bat. The tournament is - and has always been - elimination style. If you lose a match then you're out of contention. Krillen would definitely win his match but one of the Saiyans had to lose theirs. As long as that sort of thing kept happening then perhaps all the other warriors we knew would end up eliminating each other. Personally, I was hoping that it would come down to Krillen vs. Piccolo because that should have been a good fight that could have gone either way. Besides, I just felt that Krillen deserved to win a tournament for once. The last three Budoukais that he'd been in hadn't exactly been fun for him. Especially to have defeated Piccolo, that would have been a kind of symbolic release of past defeats.

Marron kept asking if her parents would be all right. I told her that they would be and as soon as Krillen had won his first match, she believed me.

Then things started to go wrong.

Piccolo forfeited his fight. He just walked out of the ring. We couldn't understand why - his opponent hadn't seemed all that dangerous.

A girl named Videl had the next notable battle. She was introduced as Videl Satan and that right there should tell you something about her. This girl had entered the tournament with every intention of winning it and her father was the defending champion. Videl was probably planning on the final match being her against her father. I'd say that maybe the kid had some anger to work out. Either that or she'd inherited a competitive streak. Anyway. Videl got to fight one of the guys that had a M on his forehead. She landed quite a few good hits but her opponent didn't seem to be taking any damage. Ridiculous. Not to mention worrying. I'd seen the M-warrior before, he'd been at other tournaments, and I knew he wasn't THAT good. Something was sour with this picture. Videl demonstrated her ability to fly and kept attacking even as she started to tire out. She took a brutal beating but refused to let anyone come to her rescue.

I was up in the stands, not down by the arena, so at first I thought that Gohan was just trying to do the superhero thing when he wanted to save her. I wouldn't realize that Gohan and Videl knew each other from school until later. I was beginning to wonder where Mr. Satan was though because if that had been my kid down there...

When the battle was finally over, Videl was rushed to the hospital by Gohan. Mr. Satan came out of hiding for long enough to seem genuinely concerned about his daughter. Goku teleported and came back - I didn't see it so much as I felt it, his ki changed location. Gohan stalled the entire tournament for a while but was eventually ready for his fight. Videl returned to the stadium and it was clear that she'd been given a senzu bean because she was fully healed. The rest of us were wondering who those M-warriors were and where exactly they had gone but the tournament continued.

Gohans opponent didn't seem to be interested in fighting. It looked like they were just talking down there and nobody in the audience knew what was being said. The spectators started to get impatient for the match to begin, they began yelling insults. ChiChi was telling everyone around us to shut up and the rest of us were trying to figure out what was going on. Gohan looked towards the sidelines as if asking for advice. I felt Gokus ki jump, he was agitated about something. All of them were. Then Gohans ki exploded. We were momentarily blinded by the first flashes of golden light. Gohan was powering up to Super Saiyan. It was odd because he wasn't being threatened by anything at the time, there wasn't much anger behind that energy. No one really understood why he was doing it. His opponent didn't look like someone that he'd have to power up to defeat.

The M-guys came out of the crowd and used some kind of weird machine to pull Gohans aura right out from under him. They drained his energy. Right in front of everybody. We were in so much shock that we couldn't do anything about it. Everything happened so fast...

When the M-guys left the stadium, Goku was following them and he was mad. Vegeta, Krillen, Piccolo and the guy that Piccolo had forfeited to earlier also took off. Gohans opponent turned out to be a healer because Gohan recovered quickly. Gohan left the stadium with his opponent. Videl flew after them.

I didn't follow them. I was half tempted to but I figured that between them all, they'd be able to pound whatever new evil thing was out there into oblivion. Besides, I'd promised to take care of Marron. Not to mention that I was kinda badly shaken from the recent events. Seeing Gohan have his energy drained like that had brought back some unpleasant memories for me. Let me tell you... If you've ever had your energy drained... It's not a sensation that you'll easily forget.

All the warriors that had left the stadium were disqualified from the 25th Tenkaichi Budoukai. Mr. Satan was probably starting to feel relieved. Then he noticed that Android 18 was still a tournament contender. He wasn't even aware that Trunks and Goten were there too.

The people in charge of the Tenkaichi Budoukai had an emergency meeting to discuss their options. A lot of the warriors had either run away or flown away, they weren't sure how many warriors they had left in the tournament or what to do. It was rumored for a while that they might just declare the tournament closed. Just shut the tournament down without naming a champion. And it was a shock to hear that because... The Tenkaichi Budoukai has been around for millennia. It's true that the tournaments have not always been held on time. World events had caused the tournament to be canceled or delayed before but... The Budoukai had never - not one single time in its long history - been shut down while in progress. Once the tournament starts, it's sacred. There has to be a champion.

After an hour, it was announced that the officials were reluctantly declaring the worlds most respected martial arts tournament a free-for-all. All the remaining qualified fighters would enter the main arena at the same time and the last two standing would have a formal match against each other to determine who would be the tournament champion.

Goten and Trunks were doing fine but their shared costume was falling to pieces and also, 18 knew it was them. She blew the remains of their costume apart. The boys were promptly disqualified for being kids in an adult tournament. Within a few minutes the tournament was gearing up for a final match that nobody had really expected - Mr. Satan vs. Android 18.

Mr. Satan had remained in the tournament only because he'd managed to avoid everyone during the free-for-all. Goten, Trunks and 18 had eliminated everyone else and had then ignored him so that they could fight each other. It wasn't until the final match that Mr. Satan realized just how much trouble he was in. He'd spent most of his time prancing around and putting on a show for the crowds of fans that were cheering him on. After seeing 18 defeat Goten and Trunks, Mr. Satan lost all his color and finally dropped the bravado.

Android 18 grabbed the so-called hero of the world by his collar, Mr. Satan appeared to plead for his life and apparently they came to an agreement. Android 18 defeated herself rather quickly. After the fight was over 18 came by to collect Marron, she assured her daughter that she hadn't really lost. I'm not sure exactly how much Android 18 got for throwing the tournament but it must have been more than ten million because that's how much prize money the tournament champion would have been awarded. If 18 had wanted ten million or less, she would have just won the tournament. She must have gotten more than that for her acting skills.

Uhm... Yea. So much for the tournament being sacred.

The Tenkaichi Budoukai... It saddened me to see it end like that. Was almost insulting, really, to have the tournament degraded. Especially when you pause to consider all that the tournament was supposed to respresent. Fairness. Integrity. Test of skill. I'd grown up having so much respect for the tournament. I'd been raised on the stories of the old legendary warriors. I'd sparred against the normal warriors who had struggled and trained every day of their lives for a chance just to qualify. I'd fought in the old stadium. I had memories there. Granted, not all of those memories were good ones. But even at the 23rd Budoukai, where I'd been made to feel like a hunted public enemy... There had still been a mild sentimental connection. The old stadium... Had been small and dirty and the announcers microphone had been the only real piece of technology present. Yet there was something majestic about that building. Something familiar. Historic - that's the word. The old stadium... Radiated its age, I guess. There was a sort of haunted atmosphere. When you walked into that old building, you knew - you could just feel it - that thousands of other warriors had walked along those same corridors and paths. You could lean against a rail and think to yourself that perhaps some humble long-forgotten champion of Earth had once stood in the same place and leaned against the same rail.

When you have a family, you might also have heirlooms. Just random objects that don't necessarily look all that special at first - but the stories behind them... Suddenly the object is amazing and valuable simply because it's been passed down from one generation to the next. Simply because you can touch a piece of history. I bring this up because I've never known my family. And so the old stadium... Was sort of the closest thing to a family heirloom that I ever had. The new stadium certainly is nice enough, in it's own way but... The 25th Tenkaichi Budoukai made me realize just how much the old stadium had meant to me. Also made me realize just how much had changed. The fighting styles, the technology, the whole way the tournament was presented now. It was like some cheap publicity circus. No real sense of respect for an ancient custom. The warriors weren't really out to demonstrate their fighting skills anymore - now it was all about winning the prize money. Such a change of attitude...

But we had contributed to this, by shortening the tournament. By flying and shooting energy beams. By being competitive enough to show up. The average Budoukai only lasts for a day or two now, so of course the focus is on the money. It's not cost effective for the officials to pretend that the tournament is about anything else anymore. They rent this new stadium out for other events the rest of the year. They never used to rent the old stadium out, it was for the tournament only but that was back when the tournament could last for months. That was back before so many of their corporate sponsers had gone out of business or lost interest. When the tournament had lasted for months, to be a sponser had made good advertising sense. With the shortened Budoukai, even with the grand prize money increased and publicity value of the kids tournament, companies are not as easy to convince. This change - whether or not we'd intended it, we'd caused it - I understand, now. I've made peace with it. But it kinda hurt to watch.

Would have been more painful if I'd had a chance to dwell on the reduced sentimental value of the tournament. Fortunately - or unfortunately - I had distractions.

Sometimes ki detection is as much of a curse as it is a blessing. I hadn't focused on the last bits of the tournament much because I was trying to keep tabs on various energy signatures. Piccolo and Krillens kis had vanished, Goten and Trunks were flying off somewhere and Videl had come back to the stadium. I had been trying to think of a way to tell Android 18 what I had sensed in regard to Krillen but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Especially not with Marron right there.

18 told me that she hoped I didn't mind babysitting the 'other kid'. Roshi resented that remark. Then 18 left to take her daughter home.

**ooxoo**


	28. One of those days

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 28: One of those days...**

**T**hose of us that had remained at the stadium were preparing to leave since the tournament was now over. A flash of light caught everyones attention. Suddenly Vegeta was there, hovering above the main arena. With an M on his forehead. And his energy signature had changed. It's hard to describe. Basically, Vegeta was stronger. Not a real surprise since he'd done an insane amount of training for the tournament. But... Something was off, something had changed. The way his ki radiated... Maybe Vegeta wasn't feeling well. Or maybe he'd just snapped and gone insane. I don't know the details. That's just the impression I got.

Before we could even react, Vegeta launched an attack at Goku - who had also suddenly appeared. Goku dodged the blast. And instantly regretted it. The attack blew a hole in one wall of the stadium, killing a couple hundred innocent people in the process. All the spectators who were still alive started to scream, panic and try to escape. Goku and Gohan were both refusing to fight. They were trying to get Vegeta to come to his senses. Instead Vegeta blasted some of the fleeing people.

I was so glad that 18 had already taken her daughter and left. So glad that Marron didn't have to witness the devastation. Equally glad that Trunks and Goten were both absent as well.

Goku yelled out - no idea who he was talking to - that he would only fight Vegeta if they were in a place where no other people were around to get hurt. With that, Goku and Vegeta both vanished. Gohan and purple guy that had defeated Piccolo earlier also left. Mr. Satan would later tell the media that they had 'escaped'.

Master Roshi and I were trying to leave the stadium while keeping track of everyone. ChiChi was worried about her family. Bulma was in more shock than she knew how to express. There was nothing to say that could really comfort either of them. We didn't know what could be done about the situation because we didn't understand what was going on.

Videl caught up to us and explained what she could about evil magical beings from ancient alien planets - but it didn't make a lot of sense.

We felt a new ki signature emerge. Shortly after that, Gohans power started to get batted around. Gohans ki soon faded to the point where we couldn't detect him anymore. Elsewhere, Gokus ki dropped. Trunks and Goten got closer to the place where Gohan had been fighting. I was happy to notice that Piccolo and Krillens energy signatures returned - but that was the only happy note in what seemed to be a disaster brewing.

Then we got sidetracked. Bulma had decided to take me seriously for once. I'd tried to cheer everyone up by making the comment that we could probably use the dragonballs to resurrect the people that Vegeta had already killed. Master Roshi agreed. But Roshi had also added that the dragonballs couldn't fix the mistakes of the past. Essentially what Roshi implied was that resurrecting Vegetas most recent victims wouldn't change Vegeta. And Vegeta had been a mass murderer long before we'd ever met him.

Between her money, her fame and her capacity for genius... Bulma is the sort of person that expects to be able to control the world. She hates to be reminded that she has limits. That situations - and people - are sometimes beyond her control. The second that you tell her that something can't be fixed, that's when she'll become determined to fix it. Master Roshi had dared to say that the dragonballs might not make things better. So Bulma instantly felt obliged to prove him wrong.

Honestly I think that as long as Bulma has someone to be mad at, she can cope with about anything.

The bus we were on - and the rest of the city - was hit by a massive shock wave. The energy signatures were so powerful that it was overwhelming. Roshi and I gave up on trying to track everyone. Bulma suspected that Vegeta'd had something to do with the pseudo-earthquake and that just made her all the more determined to fix things.

It didn't take long to gather the dragonballs. We brought the full set to Capsule Corp and summoned Shenlong. Videl was impressed by the sight of the dragon and for a moment nobody could figure out exactly what the wish should be. I got to make that wish, somewhat accidentally. I just asked if it was okay for Shenlong to bring back only the non-evil things, as opposed to reincarnating everything that had died recently. Shenlong answered the question by granting the request. That seemed like the safest thing to do. No point in resurrecting the evil things.

Goku appeared beside us right then. He was upset because we'd already used a wish. Goku told us that the battles weren't over and that we'd need the other wishes for later. Shenlong took the hint and said farewell before departing. The dragonballs scattered again. We asked Goku for further explanation of what he'd just done and were reminded of two rules concerning the dragonballs.

If you use all the wishes at once, the dragonballs can only be used once a year and yet - as you might recall - the dragonballs can't reincarnate anyone that has been dead for over a year. Which means that if someone dies and the dragonballs have already been used that year then by the time the dragonballs are useable again, it will probably be too late to reincarnate the dead person with a wish. Goku didn't want us to use all the wishes since he had the feeling that more people were going to die before the battles were over.

He teleported us to Kamis Lookout. We were greeted by Dende, Mister Popo, Piccolo, Krillen, Android 18 and Marron. We were told that Goten and Trunks were safe but we weren't told where exactly the boys were. Goku informed us that his time left on Earth was getting short and oh, by the way - Vegeta is definitely dead and Gohan is probably also dead.

ChiChi fainted. Bulma had a nervous breakdown.

The rest of us wanted to look for Tenshinhan, Chaozu, Android 17 and anyone else on Earth that was a halfway decent fighter. The only warrior that we didn't worry too much about finding was Yajirobe because we could sense him. Yajirobe was at Korins Tower. We figured that he and Korin should be safe if they stayed there.

We felt that we had extremely lousy odds against anything that could kill Gohan and Vegeta. By working together, we sincerely hoped that the remaining warriors on Earth might have a shot at winning the battle. We all kind of doubted it though. We fretted about losing Goku and wanted to find out a way around the limits on Uranai Babas magic so that he could stay on Earth longer. But Goku didn't want to stay. He was hoping to find Gohan in the land of the dead.

We debated going after other people we knew. Bulma wanted to get her parents. Videl wanted to find her father. I wanted to find Puar. Master Roshi thought we should bring Oolong and Umigame. ChiChi, when she recovered, wanted to locate Ox King. All of us wanted to gather our friends but what was the point of herding all these people to the Lookout if they would just die there? We would need supplies too. There wouldn't be time to collect everyone _and_ everything so we tried to decide what our priorities were. It wasn't easy to be a part of that discussion. Should we try to save our friends or gather enough supplies to ensure our own survival? What were our options? Couldn't we set up headquarters somewhere on Earth until a better solution was reached? Just what the heck were we up against?

An evil wizard named Babidi telepathically announced to everyone on Earth that he was looking for Goten, Trunks and Piccolo. We weren't technically on Earth but everyone up at Kamis Lookout heard the announcement anyway. Babidi introduced Buu. They proceeded to demolish a town because the 'three idiots' hadn't come forth. Babidi then threatened the rest of the world. Specifically - Babidi told us that within five days, the Earths population would be extinct. However he was in our minds so all we had to do to contact him was concentrate. The wizard promised that anyone who could give him information about Goten, Trunks and Piccolo would be spared. Piccolo had to be restrained through all this, he would have gone forward on his own otherwise. He claimed that he stood a better chance against the monsters than the people of Earth did. The fusion with Kami had affected him that way. I don't think that Kami was a voice in his head or anything but ever since the fusion, Piccolo has been more protective of Earth.

Personally, I just figured that we were doomed. Lets be sensible here. We were up against a monster that was insanely strong and that we'd been told was able to heal itself. Thus even if we did manage to hurt Buu, we knew that he'd probably recover. On top of that, we had to deal with Babidi - an evil wizard that was psychic enough to reach our minds without even being anywhere near us. Which meant that no matter what plan we came up with... They'd know. They'd be prepared. Uranai Baba was perhaps the only creature on Earth that could have defeated the villains by herself. Or maybe not. She was staying in hiding someplace.

Goten and Trunks joined the group as soon as they had regained consciousness. We didn't have to tell the boys that Vegeta and Gohan were dead, they realized it quickly. Both the boys were capable of sensing energy signatures. When they couldn't find Gohan or Vegetas kis... It was hard for them to come to terms with the loss. Goku was being absolutely heartless - which is so badly out of character for him that I can't begin to tell you how much it terrified the rest of us. He told the kids point blank to quit crying. Goku said that he didn't have time for their dramatics, he had to teach them a new technique so that they would be able to save the world when he was dead again.

Imagine being seven or eight years old and hearing that you have to save the world. Imagine hearing it from some guy that you only just met earlier today. Imagine not believing that you can save the world because the two strongest people that you know have already died trying.

No matter how bad of a day I was having, Trunks and Goten had it infinitely worse. They were both really badly frightened and the way Goku was acting didn't help. Instead of working with Goku, the boys turned against him. Trunks and Goten changed their fear into anger. They got mad at Goku. They accused of him of letting Vegeta and Gohan die.

Goku didn't show how much it hurt him to be accused of that. Piccolo, Roshi, ChiChi, Krillen, Bulma and I noticed anyway. Inwardly, we all flinched.

Before Trunks and Goten could launch a full scale attack, Babidi telepathically communicated with everyone again. Trunks and Goten hadn't been awake the first time so they had no idea what was going on. Piccolo advised them to keep their eyes open. We didn't want them to close their eyes. Because if you closed your eyes, you could see the projected images of Buu preparing to destroy a city.

Trunks has always had a rebellious streak. And Goten hates to be left out of things. And neither of the boys were in the mood to take orders. So they closed their eyes. They watched Buu turn a city full of people into chocolate. Buu then devoured the former people, blew the city flat and began looking for another city to play with. As soon as the boys had recovered from their shock, they shouted at the villains. I can't blame Goten and Trunks for yelling. I can't blame them for being outraged. But I really wish that they had stayed quiet. Because Babidi heard them. The boys were giving away our location.

Piccolo and Goku put an end to this by taking the boys aside to train.

Unfortunately, Babidi had established that there was a connection between Trunks and Capsule Corp. So the next telepathic message we got was a threat to the existence of Capsule Corp and the surrounding area. Babidi said that he would spare the place if Trunks surrendered immediately. Almost everyone at the Lookout was upset by this - no one moreso than Trunks. However Goku brushed the threat off, insisting that the boys had to train. He said that we'd be able to reincarnate everyone later with the dragonballs. None of us could believe it - that Goku was suddenly willing to just let people die. Could the boys have been right? Maybe Goku _could _have saved Gohan or Vegeta...

Bulma stepped in. She said that she wouldn't be able to use the dragonballs if Capsule Corp was leveled because guess where she'd left the dragonball radar.

Think about that. Bulma invented the dragonball radar. So she didn't really need to go get the radar. She could have just built another one. But... This was her way of letting us all know that she didn't want for her home, company, parents and friends to be destroyed. Also... Bulma was the first person in our group who had met Goku, out in the wilderness all those years ago. She had not always viewed Goku as smart - Bulma hardly ever thinks of anyone else as smart - but she had still respected him. She was clearly starting to wonder if her trust was misplaced. Goku had changed. Bulma didn't like the ways that he'd changed. And so the way that she spoke to him... It wasn't just the words, it was how they were said. Bulma wanted to see, now, if her opinion mattered at all to the warrior that she had known for so long. If her years of friendship and support - she had always been there to build or repair a gadget, when needed - counted for anything.

She wasn't the only one who had questions. Bulma had given voice to a concern that most of us shared in that moment. ChiChi loves her husband but right then she might have screamed at him for how he was behaving, if she'd been up to it. For better or worse, ChiChi was too absorbed in grief to say anything. Krillen and Roshi and I... We were stunned beyond words, too. Even Android 18 might have slapped him. And Goku must have realized all this - but only after Bulma had spoken up. He might not have noticed, otherwise. I don't know. He'd been away from us all for so long.

Basically what we projected, without saying it out loud, was along the lines of: "Who the heck are you, anyway? And if you're not interested in being our friend anymore then why are you even trying to save our world?"

We just didn't understand his motives. Was fighting so much more important than anything else now? Was Goku maybe saving the world out of habit and not because he actually cared? Sure. Vegeta and Piccolo might have each saved the world for bad reasons in the past - but they weren't our friends, not like Goku had been. It was depressing to think that our friend had changed so drastically. It hurt to think that maybe we didn't even matter to him anymore.

Everyone was tense and frustrated, it comes from feeling helpless. Goku didn't feel like he had time for all these details anymore but he decided to go stall the villains. Trunks was instructed to fly to Capsule Corp, get the dragonball radar and then return to the Lookout. No pausing to try to save anyone. Not even his grandparents. I'm sure it was tearing the kid up to think that he'd have to leave people behind but he reluctantly agreed to the mission. Trunks took off a moment after Goku had teleported out.

We discovered that mind reading can be a two way street. Since Babidi was in our minds to some degree, we gradually became aware of his mind. A very strange detached sensation. If we concentrated then we could hear and see everything that Babidi was experiencing. So we saw Goku arrive and heard him stalling. Goku tried to turn Buu and Babidi against each other. Babidi wasn't impressed. Buu was bored. Goku wanted their attention so he proceeded to do a power up that left us wondering why the Earth was still intact. We didn't know how to feel about Goku but we rooted for him anyway. At least if Goku destroyed the planet, he'd do it quickly. Goku announced that he was now Super Saiyan level 3. Both his hair and his power level had grown enormously. I had the temporary mental image of SSJ4 being this incredibly dangerous blonde hairball.

Buu was excited. Babidi was frightened enough to hide behind the pink blob while he continued making threats to the world in general. Oh. Yea. Buu was this giant pink blob. For some unknown reason, the villains who endanger our world seem to keep getting less and less human. It's kinda disturbing.

Anyway. Buu and SSJ3Goku cut loose against each other for a while. They seemed evenly matched as far as power went but there was a significant difference in attitude. Goku was angry while Buu thought the fight was great fun. Goku was able to dodge everything being thrown at him and Buu was able to heal itself - so the battle wasn't accomplishing anything. They created some shock waves that were strong enough for us to feel at Kamis Lookout - in Earth orbit - but didn't do much else.

Trunks was headed back towards us, we could feel his ki racing along. SSJ3 must be a lot of work because Goku was glad to be able to power down. Goku tried to convince Buu to wait a couple days for a warrior that would defeat him and then he teleported back to us. We were still able to read Babidis mind, we felt his anger about Gokus escape. We heard him yelling at Buu and the next thing we knew, we felt Babidi die. Apparently Buu doesn't like being yelled at.

As if we weren't scared enough before. Now we had to worry about what exactly Buu would do when he wasn't under someones control. Didn't take long to find out. While Goku tried to explain that going SSJ3 distorts time, we sensed that Buu was flattening yet another city.

Once or twice, Goku seemed to regret having come back to Earth. He clearly felt that everything was somehow his fault. Goku was deeply upset that the one day - one lousy day - he'd wanted to spend alive again with family and friends had turned into a grim battle for Earth. Goku was around age 38 at the time and everything he'd been through since age 12, the effects really showed. He'd changed a lot in terms of personality. He couldn't relax, he didn't seem to trust anyone anymore and he resented the way that he always had to end up saving the world. Goku had become an impatient serious guy. That's why most of us just stayed out of Gokus way. We felt like we were around this complete stranger - some guy that only looked like someone we used to know. It was nerve-wracking but mostly just awkward.

Piccolo was the only one who was still talking to Goku now. Thus Piccolo got entrusted with the duty of teaching Goten and Trunks something called fusion.

Erm. We all knew what fusion was. Kind of. We'd seen - or at least heard about - fusion being done before. Piccolo had fused twice in his life. Once with a native of planet Namek and once with our former Kami. And Cell had fused, sort of. When he'd absorbed Androids 17 and 18 - that was a kind of fusion, wasn't it? So... Well. Yea. We understood the word. We just hadn't been aware that fusion was an option for Saiyans. Or anyone else.

Krillen had been at the Lookout earlier, when Goku had first explained fusion. So Krillen told the rest of us that fusion was something that Goku had learned while dead and that the effects of this type of fusion were not permanent. In fact, if done correctly, the fusion would only last for a half hour. We all hoped that thirty minutes would be enough time to save the world. If the world was left by the time the boys learned this technique, that is.

I didn't like the idea at all though. Anything that can make someone so strong so fast has to have some serious drawbacks. I worried that the boys would find out what the dangers were the hard way. Not that my opinion mattered much around someone like Goku but I felt that he wasn't telling us everything about the technique. I hoped that he knew what he was doing, that Trunks and Goten would be okay.

Uranai Baba arrived at the Lookout before Trunks had even gotten back. That's how low on time Goku had become. So as soon as Trunks had returned, Goku immediately dragged the boys - and Piccolo - inside of the palace on Kamis Lookout to train. Trunks left the dragonball radar with us. Krillen and Master Roshi would later check in on the training. They didn't understand why Goku was teaching a dance class at a time like this. Hearing their remarks made the rest of us curious, so we looked in on the training as well.

The fusion dance is similar to a specific martial arts exercise where you end up punching your opponent in the head and in the stomach at the same time. Except that the poses of the kata are slowed down and done out of sequence for the fusion dance. As a result, the fusion dance looks corny. It seems very forced and unnatural.

Gokus time ran out. There were some tearful goodbyes for him even though most of us expected to join him in the afterlife soon. Goten had the hardest time letting go. The kid believed that he'd lost Gohan and he didn't want to lose anyone else. Before departing with Uranai Baba, Goku agreed with the sentiment that we were all doomed. He calmly promised to look for us when we were dead. With the possible exception of Goten, we were all kind of relieved when Goku was gone again. True, we'd miss him and we wished that he could help save the Earth but... He'd just changed so much. Heck - all of us had changed. It's to be expected. We'd had seven whole years to get accustomed to life without Goku. Just being around him again had been stressful. It had kind of opened old wounds.

To say the least, May 7th, 774 A.D. had been a rough day. For Trunks and Goten the day wasn't over yet. They had to go back to training - they wanted to train now. The boys were exhausted already but they didn't want to take a break since they didn't want to let us down. Much as we all hated for it to be this way, the burden of the world was resting on two kids that weren't even ten years old yet and they knew it.

I think Marron was the only one at Kamis Lookout that could sleep. The rest of us were too nervous. Krillen, Roshi and I played cards and talked about things all night. Sometimes one of the others would join in for a game - ChiChi, Android 18, Bulma, Mister Popo. It was just a way to pass the time. Dende was preoccupied watching over the Earth and Piccolo was trying to train the boys. May 8th was shaping up to be another hectic day.

**ooxoo**


	29. Progress isn't easy

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 29: Progress isn't easy**

**O**kay. Lets see. So I was at Kamis Lookout. Krillen, Android 18, Marron, Videl, Master Roshi, ChiChi, Bulma, Piccolo, Dende, Mister Popo, Goten and Trunks were also there. Yajirobe and Korin were at the tower, so they were practically there. Goku had returned to being dead. We knew that Vegeta was dead and we believed that Gohan was dead. We had no idea where exactly Tenshinhan, Chaozu, Android 17 and all our other friends on Earth were but we didn't dare go looking for them either. We didn't want to risk being seen. We didn't want to lead anyone to the Lookout by accident. We figured that if Tenshinhan and Chaozu were alive, they'd know where to search for us.

The good news was that the evil wizard Babidi was dead. The bad news was that Buu was still running around on Earth killing things.

Before I move on, I should mention Videl. She had come to the Lookout with us. She'd talked with us a little but listened to us more. She was the newcomer to our group, she had the most questions. She wanted to know about all the battles we'd ever been involved in. She wanted to know about the dragonballs. She liked Gohan and wanted to understand him better - she was trying to wrap her head around the idea of Goku being related to him. Because she'd first met and befriended Gohan during the years after the Cell Games when Goku had been dead. Videl had gradually become aware of who Gohans father was just by hanging around the Son family but with all the recent chaos... Videl had only met Goku yesterday and she did not have an good first impression of him. For the past six or so years, ChiChi and Gohan had told Videl about what an amazingly nice guy Goku was. She'd been expecting to meet a real hero. And she did, he was just having an incredibly bad day. Videl was confused. She was disappointed. She was concerned.

The fact that we currently believed Gohan was dead... Yea. That wasn't good for Videl either.

Sometimes, she just paced the Lookout. Sometimes, she played cards with us. But Videl could fly. And Videl had recently joined forces with Gohan - she had a superhero costume of her own, complete with cape and helmet. She felt dutybound to protect and serve. So, more than once, she slipped off. We let her. Her power was above average and her willpower is significant but she wasn't going to be easily detected. We didn't worry about her comings and goings giving away our location. We'd glimpse Videl snapping into the costume then stepping off the Lookout. We'd hear about her on the radio broadcasts.

Yea. There were still radio broadcasts. We didn't listen to them much because reception at the Lookout - or within fifty feet of Krillen - tends to be hit and miss. But we heard enough to get the gist of recent news. Buu didn't level every city and town that he saw, sometimes he'd only level pieces of them. Videl, as the Second Sayaman, did a lot of work to help the survivors. She wasn't the only one. There were a lot of 'average' people who did the work of heros during this time. Hospitals were under considerable stress but they were still open because the doctors, nurses, therapists and paramedics refused to be shut down. All of the worlds police forces, firemen and military personnel - they reported for duty and tried to figure out how to defend the world. Construction workers formed teams that took down crumbling buildings and put up temporary shelters. Employees of the power companies were out fixing the system, wanting to make sure that everyone had access to electricity. All sorts of people took it upon themselves to make sure that the water was still safe to drink and that food could be handed out to anyone who was hungry. Roads were cleared. Supply chains were established. Lines of communication were secured. Reporters, broadcasters and their support crews worked long shifts trying to keep up with both the ongoing destruction and the budding attempts to recover.

While down on Earth, Videl also made the time to search for Gohans remains. She couldn't believe that he was dead. She'd been friends with Gohan for around six years. He'd taught her how to fly, maybe a couple months ago. He'd saved her life at the tournament, yesterday. And he wasn't just someone that she liked, he wasn't just a friend - he'd been a classmate. The idea of returning to school one day and Gohan not being there anymore... Videl didn't want to even try to imagine that. She didn't want to believe it was possible. Videl was maybe seventeen or eighteen years old. She wasn't used to outliving the people that she cared about. So she wanted to find Gohans body, wanted to see for herself that this awful claim was true. She never found him.

She did find her father, kind of. She learned that he was still alive. However Mr. Satan had retreated to an underground bunker and had hired a group of armed guards to protect the hidden entrance - so Videl probably didn't get a chance to speak to him. Thus she returned to Lookout, when she needed to rest and spoke with us.

Goten and Trunks had spent most of the night training. May 7th had been a long day for them. They'd won the kids tournament, entered the adult tournament in disguise and flown halfway around the world trying to figure out what was going on. The boys still hadn't come to terms with Vegeta and Gohan being dead, they weren't sure what to feel about Goku and they very quickly got on Piccolos nerves. It's not hard to do. Piccolo is a great warrior but he doesn't really have the patience for teaching. Especially not when the world is already at stake. Piccolo is the sort that would rather take care of things on his own. He isn't what you'd call talkative so he doesn't enjoy having to explain things. He's not very tactful either. Instead of telling the kids what they were doing right, Piccolo was always on their case about what they had messed up. Which - and I hate to be harsh - but it was stupid. It was also unfair. After all Piccolo himself had only learned about the fusion dance technique YESTERDAY. For him to be acting all high and mighty, like he was an expert that had known about this kind of thing for years... That's how he came off, anyway and it was irritating. Yes, true. Piccolo had fused before. Twice. But he'd never done the fusion dance.

The rest of us eventually stepped in and got the kids to take a break. They needed the rest and more importantly, they needed the reassurance. They had to hear that it was okay if they messed up. Mistakes are part of the learning process. We knew they were feeling stressed and we admired them for trying to save the world anyway.

Dende was right there but Piccolo actually redeemed himself a little by showing off a new skill - he had learned to heal others. He also was able to instantly repair all the damages that sparring can do to clothes. The fact that Piccolo can be both a warrior and a healer... It was a surpise that made us look at Dende in a new light. We had been under the impression that a Namek could only have one type of energy, either healing OR fighting. Not both. But since Piccolo was now clearly capable of doing both - what did that mean? Was Dende becoming a warrior someday not out of the question? How strong might Dende be, as a warrior? We didn't get to speculate much. Dende wasn't interested in this discussion and the kids needed our attention more.

Honestly Trunks and Goten were doing better than anyone had expected. On top of learning the fusion dance technique, the boys were learning new attacks. Most of the moves they had invented were pretty basic - just powered up punch and kick combinations with fairly silly names. Made sense though. The whole reason that the boys had gone Super Saiyan at such an early age was precisely because they didn't have any special attacks. They had to power up to make the basic stuff more dangerous. Think about it - they'd gone Super Saiyan _years_ before either of them could even fly.

Goten had only known the kamehameha for maybe the last week, he'd learned the attack especially for the 25th tournament. Trunks had learned the attack as well - from watching Goten, no doubt. But neither of them used kamehameha much since it wasn't a habit for them. The boys were just more comfortable with regular martial arts.

If there was a switch somewhere and we could turn off everyones ki then warriors like Goku, Vegeta and Gohan would no longer be extremely lethal. Because they need the power. Their fighting styles rely heavily on their energy attacks and ability to fly. They've spent more time practicing energy blasts than regular fighting. Goten and Trunks are different from the other Saiyans in this regard. The boys haven't had much formal training but what training they've done has focused more on actual fighting than energy blasts. Which means that in world without ki, Trunks and Goten would still be two of the most dangerous warriors on the planet.

However where there is ki, you might as well use it. Krillen and I had resigned ourselves to accepting the fact that a couple of not-yet ten year olds were going have to save the world. Much as we hated to send Trunks and Goten into battle at all, we weren't going to send them out unprepared. Krillen taught the kids kienzan. They caught on fast. Within fifteen minutes, something kinda amazing happened. Goten and Trunks modified the attack right in front of us. They improved it. They turned the slicing disc into an energy ring, made a joke about donuts and then had to go show Piccolo.

Erm. Usually inventing decent energy attacks takes a little more time than that.

Poor Krillen was left trying to figure out why he hadn't thought of turning kienzan into 'donuts' before. Master Roshi said that now we knew how he felt - since it had taken him fifty years to invent kamehameha and Goku had learned the attack in five minutes.

There's nothing quite like having a seven year old improve one of your attacks and a three-hundred-forty-four year old tell you to join the club to make you feel ancient. I decided not to teach the kids my own moves. I didn't think they'd need my advice.

We went back to playing cards. Seemed like no matter what game we played, Mister Popo won - and ChiChi began talking to herself again. She'd been kind of out of it lately what with Goku having come back to life for a day, Gohan being dead, not knowing where Ox King was and everything else. ChiChi was age 37. She's four years younger than me but you'd never guess it. She acts like she's older than Roshi sometimes. A lifetime of stress had taken a visible toll on her. She hides most of the physical signs by coloring her hair and so forth but mentally and emotionally... That damage can't always be hidden.

It was heart-wrenching just listening to her. ChiChi never wanted a lot from life. She grew up beside a burning mountain and probably spent most of her time alone, reading magazines or studying martial arts. Her dream had always been to find a place where she could fit in and be accepted. To make a long story short - ChiChi grew up feeling that her father, Ox King, was the only person in the world who might notice her absence if she died. And the truly sad thing is that at age 37, she still felt that way.

We tried talking with ChiChi but for the most part, she didn't seem to hear us. So she just talked to herself. She debated with herself about Goten. On the one hand, she didn't want to lose Goten because she felt like she'd already lost everyone else. On the other hand, the world was at stake. ChiChi didn't actually care much for the world - she felt like the planet owed her - but she knew that if the Earth was destroyed then she'd lose Goten anyway. So she couldn't win. As a result ChiChi was becoming suicidal and rather paranoid. She was convinced that we were all turning against her, that the sole purpose of the whole universe was to deprive her of a happy life with a normal family.

It took Android 18 and Marron to talk ChiChi out of attacking us. Then it took Krillen, Bulma, Master Roshi, Videl and I to talk ChiChi out of killing herself.

Dende watched from a distance. He didn't get involved but his expression was pained. He later said that while he would prefer it if people didn't kill themselves, he wasn't going to take away the option. I dunno about the Kami in your world but our Dende is pro-choice. When asked, Dende flat out told ChiChi that she'd still go to heaven because her life had been hell. He said that it wasn't gods job to prevent death. He quietly added that he didn't believe in condemning souls since humans were better at punishing themselves than anyone else would ever be.

Eventually we managed to get ChiChi to calm down and talk about other subjects. We wanted to keep her talking. If she stopped talking then she'd start thinking about everything again and that would only cause her pain. So we all played cards and talked about really pointless stuff for a while - commercials on television that annoyed us, just inconsequential junk. It was actually kind of nice. With conversation like that, a person could almost forget that the world was endangered by a powerful pink blob.

Dende was a constant reminder though. He'd been keeping tabs on Earth, watching everything down there. Dende let us know whenever another city had been flattened. Buu apparently wasn't pure evil but he was still destroying things at an alarming pace.

ChiChi suddenly wondered what the fused kid would be called. The rest of us had no clue, we'd never seen anyone that was fused before. Except Piccolo. And I guess you could call Perfect Cell a fusion. But Cell had been dead for seven years and Piccolo had always claimed that Namekian fusion was unique. So we weren't sure what to expect from this type of fusion. Would Goten and Trunks remember us? Would they become a totally new person? Would one absorb the other?

Krillen reminded us that the kids were only supposed to combine for a half hour and they should be able to remember us. Still, that was just theory. We hadn't actually seen anyone use the fusion dance before.

While ChiChi was trying to guess what the name would be - she came up with 'Trunten', 'Gotrunks' and, to her credit, 'Gotenks' - the rest of us debated the merits of learning the fusion dance. Bulma said that the name wasn't a big deal and wanted everyone to lighten up. She wasn't too worried about fusion because it was only supposed to last for thirty minutes. Master Roshi thought that maybe someone should test the technique and see what the hazards were before Trunks and Goten tried it.

The trick to the fusion dance, aside from the actual dance, is that the two people fusing have to have the same power level when they fuse. Key words: _when they fuse_. The warriors who want to fuse don't have to have the same power levels all the time. Their power levels just have to match up for the duration of the fusion dance, that's all. We were told this by Krillen and he'd overheard it from Goku. However Piccolo, the current fusion teacher, was actually adding rules to the process. He felt that in order to become one then not only should the two people fusing have the exact same power levels, they should be thinking the same thoughts and breathing at the same rates for the duration of the dance. I'm not sure if any of that actually applies.

Aside from Goten and Trunks... Erm. Well. Piccolo was the strongest. But none of us really wanted to fuse with Piccolo - a feeling that was probably mutual. So... That left Krillen as the strongest eligible warrior at the Lookout. Which means that technically Krillen could have fused with anyone but he would have needed to power down to do it. Once Krillen had been talked into going along with this, the arguments concerning who he should fuse with began. The natural choice was Android 18, she was the next strongest. We wanted to have the top two combine and increase their power - that was the main idea.

18 and Krillen love each other but they hesitated. The idea of that fusion did not appeal to either of them. They didn't have to say so but it showed. Marron was more verbal about protesting the idea of her two parents becoming one person, even temporarily. Krillen and 18 were good parents. They listened. Aside from agreeing that one of them needed to stay out of the battle and try to survive in order to care for their daughter, there was another issue: gender. Trunks and Goten were both the same gender. Krillen and Android 18 were not the same gender. What would have happened, if a male and female fused? What gender would the resulting creature be? There were bound to be some potentially embarrassing complications. Also... Android 18 is a brave and sensible lady but she'd been fused, sort of, once before. When Cell basically ate her, remember? Not a good experience. So it's understandable that she was not anxious to participate in any kind of fusion at all.

I took this opportunity to sneak off. I knew that there was no way Krillen would want to fuse with Master Roshi. Which meant that really, I was it. Unless Goten or Trunks offered to fuse with him but that would have defeated the point - we were trying to protect the kids.

Uh. Yea. The idea of fusion didn't appeal to me. Never has and probably never will. I don't care if it is only for a half hour, we're talking about giving up your identity here. Trading everything that you represent for a temporary power boost. Fusion just goes against... Augh. It just doesn't seem honorable somehow, okay? It's like cheating but you have to temporarily die to pull it off. I mean... I'm not against anything that saves the world but I felt rather strongly that there had to be a better way.

I'm being too idealistic again, huh? Shouldn't expect to save the world without getting your hands dirty n' all that.

When I went inside the palace at the Lookout, the first thing I ran into was Goten. Trunks was nearby. The boys happily announced that they'd finally mastered the fusion dance. Piccolo didn't seem to agree with them but the boys wanted to prove him wrong. So they ran out of the palace to demonstrate their fusion to everyone.

The first time we saw Gotenks, he was fat and powerless because Trunks and Goten had gotten some minor detail of the fusion dance wrong. We cheered anyway. We'd never seen a fusion before. We had no idea that this form was a mistake. Fat Gotenks reminded us of Buu - the shape of the body, the way he looked. We could sense that his energy was not good but we kept expecting for that to change. We thought that his energy would trigger at any moment. It didn't. Fat Gotenks jogged maybe three steps and was utterly out of breath by the end of this effort. The group at the Lookout, we just about fell over in shock. Piccolo was not kind in his criticism and ordered the boys to unfuse. They had no idea how to unfuse. We hadn't even known that unfusing early or at will was an option. Goku hadn't mentioned anything like this, apparently. Piccolo realized that he wasn't really sure if unfusing WAS an option and stalked off.

For the kids sakes - they'd worked so hard - we hid our disappointment and gathered around. We asked questions and talked, to help pass the time. We kept the boys company while they waited for the fusion to wear off on its own. And we learned a few things in the process. Gotenks introduced himself - the fusion came with an awareness of its new name, we didn't name him. The fusion also came with its own outfit. I don't know who to compare the outfit to. Some of us felt that the clothing style looked like what Piccolo wore, minus the cape and turban. Some of us had seen the wanted posters of Buu - who on Earth had chosen to print and distribute those, I have no idea - but there was a striking outfit resembalance there too. Trunks and Goten had each been wearing their fighting uniforms. They'd both been wearing shirts. Gotenks had a vest. The boys had been wearing shoes. Gotenks had boots. Does that make any sense? I just wanted to point it out because... Okay. We hadn't know all the details of fusion. We hadn't know what e_xactly_ to expect. But, while waiting for the boys to learn the dance, we'd talked and come up with a rough idea. We had figured that the fused warrior might look and sound different. We knew that the fused warrior would have different amounts of power. But we hadn't thought about the clothes. This made us hesitate a little more. Most - not all, but most - of us were fairly modest people. Krillen was truly glad that he hadn't attempted fusion because who knows what he would have ended up wearing. And if he'd fused with 18... Can you imagine? We could and we'd rather not have.

We waited thirty minutes for that first fusion to wear off. Bulma and ChiChi spent this time debating which one of their sons Gotenks reminded them more of. They decided that he had Trunks eyes and Gotens face, stuff like that. I suspect that as far as the rest of us were concerned, with the stand-on-end flame of hair and the ego that we would later get a taste of... Yea. We saw Gotenks as a kind of mini-Vegeta. How weird.

When Trunks and Goten finally separated, they didn't have clear memories of what had happened. We told them. The boys wanted to try again. We let them.

The second time we saw Gotenks he was skinny, powerless and looked like he was about 900 years old. This might have been a comical sight if we hadn't been confused and disappointed by it. Definitely was not comical keeping the kids company this time. Elderly Gotenks spent half an hour coughing, wheezing and complaining about the types of aging troubles that not even Master Roshi could relate to. Thirty minutes later, Goten and Trunks were back to themselves. They still didn't remember what fusion was like. Again we told them what had happened and the boys wanted to keep trying. We discouraged them but they did it anyway.

On the third attempt, we finally met a version of Gotenks that might actually be able to save the world. Except that he had no real fighting experience outside of the 25th Tenkaichi Budoukai.

All that Gotenks noticed was that his power level had doubled. It was like he was on a sugar high or rather, an energy high. Went straight to his head, too. Gotenks decided that he was invincible. Before anyone could stop him, he flew off to find and defeat Buu. It was about forty minutes later when Goten and Trunks rather sheepishly returned to the Lookout. They remembered the fusion this time, they understood what had happened. They told us that the fusion had worn off before they'd found Buu. Piccolo dragged the kids aside and gave them an angry lecture about tactics.

That was a surreal lecture to overhear, by the way. Piccolo actually tried to convince the kids that power isn't everything. He wanted them to work together and fight smarter, not harder. I understood his motives with the boys, he was trying to inspire some discipline. But the words also struck an offensive chord. The power isn't everything idea - it is a nice sentiment but not one that seems to apply to our reality. Not anymore. Not when our world is endangered, anyway. Power HAS become everything when our world is endangered. It didn't always used to be this way but our world has changed. I wish that it hadn't, maybe then I would have been able to do more to save people on several occasions. But for all my life, all that training... Every battle that I'd seen, every friend that I'd outlived - even temporarily... To imply that people were dead because they hadn't been smart enough? No. That wasn't right. That wasn't accurate. People had died because their enemies were stronger. They'd died because their enemies were faster. They had died because their enemies had surprised them. When I think of all the deaths that I have witnessed, directly and indirectly... From the victims of the Red Ribbon Army all the way up to the people who were even now dying because of Buu... The fact that so many innocents had been allowed to die in that manner, that WAS stupid. Yes. But the fact that they had been dead, did that make it okay to essentially call them idiots?

Most all of the adults in our group at the Lookout - including Piccolo - we'd been dead at least once in the past. We knew that Goku and Vegeta were both dead at the time that Piccolo made this speech. We thought that Gohan was dead as well. Attaching the label of _not smart enough _to any of these people seemed like an insult, whether or not it was intended. Goten caught the implied insult and didn't know how to feel about this. Trunks took the message to heart and declared that he was going to become the 'smartest fighter ever'.

Anyway. This happened a couple more times. Gotenks, when he fused right, would always charge off to save the world. Sometimes he'd be a Super Saiyan and sometimes he wouldn't be - it depended on if the boys had powered up before fusing. Either way, none of us could keep up with the kid. He'd be a bright dot on the horizon before we'd even fully register his departure. We'd spend the next half hour watching Gotenks leave energy trails around the planet or feeling him cause some distant explosions. He'd always come back kind of beaten up, sometimes still fused but sometimes not. He'd always complain that the fusion had worn off too quickly. And Piccolo would always lecture the kids about ignoring his advice.

Then Dende perked up and announced that we were in trouble. Buu had sensed Gotenks power and was curious. He'd also seen the kids retreating. Buu had followed them, he was headed for the Lookout.

That was all the warning we had before Buu arrived.

**ooxoo**


	30. Deja Buu

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 30: Deja Buu**

**I'**ve sensed some pretty ridiculous power levels before but Buus is definitely the most ridiculous. No contest. He's so powerful that it actually hurts to detect his ki. I can't speak for anyone else but I had the feeling of deja vu. It was a lot like the Cell Games - being around Gohan when he was at full power and confident, where we'd been scared to so much as breathe around him. Buu radiated that same kind of power. He could kill us, easily and for no real reason.

Think about that for a sec. Why was Buu killing things? He didn't know anyone on Earth, he'd been in a shell for the last few million years. So he didn't have grudges against anyone specifically. We were all complete strangers to him. He wasn't blowing up towns systematically or torturing anyone. He wasn't searching for any artifacts or trying to get revenge. Buu was just killing things. For no reason other than because he thought murder was fun. If the essence of mindless destruction could actually be put into a physical form then Buu would be it. To say the least, that's scary. You can't negotiate with someone who lacks motives.

Upon arriving at the Lookout, Buus first act was to display both his temper and his power. He used this massively complex attack. He fired millions of little energy beams into the air and let them all rain down on the Earth. Buu claimed that each and every single one of those beams would kill a different person. We had no idea how anybody could pull an attack like that off. How can you even begin to control a million energy blasts at once? How would you practice something like that? Why would you want to anyway? But if it had worked... Then we realized that in one attack - one stupid attack - Buu had wiped out the remaining population of Earth. Buu laughed and confirmed this. He told us that everyone on Earth was dead now. Dende fainted. The rest of us could have.

ChiChis sanity had become a delicate thing by then. The sight of the giant pink blob who was responsible for so many deaths pushed her over the edge. ChiChi attacked Buu. She demanded that Gohan be brought back to life. Buu turned her into an egg and stepped on her. There aren't even words for what witnessing such a thing leaves a person feeling.

Unfortunately Goten had witnessed all of this. He snapped. You have to understand, the kid believed that Goku and Gohan were already dead. So if ChiChi was gone too then that made Goten the only surviving member of his immediate family - not to mention one of the only survivors of Earth. Goten was 7. He didn't want to be an orphan. He didn't want to be without a planet either.

We didn't want him to be dead. Much against their wills, Goten and Trunks were sent to train in the Room of Spirit and Time. Piccolo had to tell them which room in the palace that was because the rest of us had never seen it. Krillen escorted the kids away from Buu.

Piccolo had been keeping tabs on Earth a bit as well. He deliberately introduced Videl as Mr. Satans daughter. Videl wasn't flattered. Buu was. For the rest of us it was strange to discover that sometime during the past day and half, Buu had gained a lot of respect for Mr. Satan. Buu decided not to kill us since Piccolo had convinced him that killing Videl would upset Mr. Satan. This being despite the fact that Mr. Satan was probably already dead thanks to Buus genocide technique.

I'll say again right now that while Mr. Satan is a crummy fighter, he does have something going for him and apparently it's charisma. Either that or dumb luck. Whatever it was, we were grateful for it because it was buying us time. Buu agreed to wait for an hour.

As soon as I was able to think straight and push the shock aside, I focused on Earth and tried to detect ki there. The idea that I might be one of the only people left alive did not set well with me. I couldn't make myself believe that I'd outlived ninety-nine percent of the Earths population. That's not the kind of news that sinks in right away. It took some effort to ignore Buus ki signature but once I got past that, I saw exactly how much damage the genocide attack had done. There were only five ki signatures left on Earth. It was absolutely devastating - just the void, the emptiness. The total lack of ki. So many were dead. I thought of all my friends and fans and co-workers and neighbors and even the people that I saw often but didn't really know. Cashiers at the grocery store, postal workers, bank tellers, media reporters... To think, they were all gone. Just like that. Just because. It was sickening. And Puar... In that instant, I knew that my best friend was dead. It would have been less painful to walk barefoot across broken glass.

But I didn't let myself focus on those things because I recognized all five of the energy signatures on Earth. Tenshinhan, Chaozu, that stupid Mr. Satan, Mister Popo and... Dende?! What the heck?!

Of course, I quickly realized that Dende being on Earth - away from Buu - was a good idea. Because as long as Dende stayed alive then the dragonballs would remain intact. Maybe Chaozu would be able to locate the dragonballs with some psychic skill. Or maybe Korin and Yajirobe - if they were still at Korins Tower, I couldn't detect them but I imagine that they'd sensed Buu and that would have given them reason to hide their kis - would be the ones to gather the dragonballs. Whoever did it would probably have to find the artifacts without the dragonball radar for once. Then Puar could be wished back to life because she hadn't been dead before. Same for ChiChi, Oolong and probably most of the other dead people.

Except... All those people that Majin Vegeta had killed earlier. The people that I'd so foolishly wished back to life just yesterday. Now they were dead again. We probably wouldn't be able to wish them back to life again, not so soon. Which meant that I'd inadvertently killed a couple hundred complete strangers. Not a good feeling. That made me pause to wonder - what about the people that the androids had killed? What about the people that Cell had killed? What about the ones that had been killed by Vegeta and Nappa? What about the ones that had been victims of Piccolo Daimio? Sure, some of these battles had been a while ago. But the point was that rather a lot of the people that Buu had murdered had been dead before. What if we really couldn't wish them all back? What if it was beyond Shenlongs power to restore them again? What if the dragonballs couldn't fix things? I hadn't thought about this scenario seriously before. Wish that I hadn't, either. It was probably the only concept more frightening than Buu.

Speaking of which, Buu got bored. He decided not to wait anymore. Buu threatened to kill all of us which caused Piccolo to reluctantly give in. Piccolo probably could have stalled Buu longer if the rest of us hadn't been there. It was a good thing we were at the Lookout though since it made Dendes absence a little less noticeable.

We watched them go into the palace. We hoped that Buu would never leave the building.

Goten and Trunks - we could sense them - were hitting power levels that matched what Gokus had been while he was Super Saiyan 3. It felt as if the boys had completely skipped Super Saiyan level 2. Which is right when we remembered that Goku had said something about SSJ3 distorting time. If the kids fused and went SSJ3, if they were at that level, then what would that do to the time limit on the fusion? And what if SSJ3 wasn't enough anyway? SSJ3Goku had been able to match Buus strength but he hadn't actually put a dent in the monster.

We sensed the fight taking place. We couldn't see it but we didn't have to. Buus energy plummeted and then skyrocketed. Piccolo and Gotenks were holding out but it felt like they were on the defensive all the time. The more they tried to win, the closer they got to losing - that's just the feeling we got.

And yea, we could have run away. We could have left the Lookout, gone to Earth and tried to gather the dragonballs. We didn't. Android 18 put Marron into Bulmas arms and told her to get out of there. Krillen, 18, Videl, Master Roshi and I all lined up and waited. We were dreading it but we knew that if Buu stepped out of the room first then we had to try to buy the world a little more time. Mister Popo returned and he joined us. In spite of all our hesitations about the technique, we might have tried the fusion dance then - but we didn't think that there was enough time for that anymore.

Bulma absolutely refused to leave. We weren't able to argue with her. Buu exited the Room of Spirit and Time.

We never stood a chance. We died so quickly that we weren't even sure exactly how Buu had killed us. At least this time, death had been painless. Krillen, Master Roshi, Mister Popo, Android 18, Marron, Bulma, Videl and I found ourselves gathered outside of Lord Enmas office. It was fairly crowded there since most of the worlds population was dead. Before long our group had grown. Puar found us. ChiChi and Ox King found us. Lunch, Oolong, Umigame and Bulmas parents were all there. Android 17 came over to us and he demanded to know what the heck was going on.

To be honest with you, it was easier to keep track of who wasn't there. And that's what surprised us too. Because Gohan wasn't there. Nor were Goku, Vegeta, Goten, Trunks and Piccolo. We weren't sure what this meant. We'd expected all of them to be dead. We decided it was worth checking.

When we reached Lord Enmas desk, we found that he was in as bad a mood as ever. Not just because so many dead people were around - which makes his job more complicated - but because there was a short elderly lady hovering on a crystal ball and arguing with him. Madame Uranai Baba. She was glad that we'd all found her and said that this is what the future had needed us for. She needed our help. It was a bit intimidating to be told that. We had no idea what she was going to ask of us but promised that we'd do what we could.

Whatever we'd just agreed to convinced Lord Enma to give up, he let Uranai Baba win their argument. He told some of the minor demons that were hanging around his office to go fetch something.

...Uhm. Well. Yea. Vegeta had spent a day in hell. The demons brought what was left of him in on a stretcher. Not a pretty sight. We had to be told that it was in fact Vegeta that we were looking at. We hadn't even been sure that it had been humanoid once.

It's really hard to still hate someone after you've see them reduced to that.

Uranai Baba explained that she only had the power to reincarnate Vegeta. She didn't have the energy to heal him because she was still drained from having reincarnated Goku yesterday. The reincarnation spell had required energy from her for the whole time that Goku had been alive. Uranai Baba wasn't even sure that she'd be able to keep Vegeta alive for more than a couple hours. Not that reincarnation would do him any good without being healed first.

Then Korin appeared in the afterlife. Yajirobe and Chaozu both came up with him. None of them were technically dead but they made it to Lord Enmas office anyway. Korin apologized for being late. Chaozu didn't say much, he gets quiet when he's anxious. Yajirobe told us that senzu beans don't work on dead people but he thought that between them, they could heal all the physical injuries. Guess that Korin, Mister Popo and Yaji had all learned healing magic from Dende. Korin might have known healing magic for hundreds of years but apparently he hadn't used them in ages, so he credited Dende for refreshing his memory. Mister Popo had some doubts about using the skill which is why he hadn't mentioned it earlier.

Chaozu had also never mentioned being a healer. Because he hasn't practiced that skill as much. But healing... Even before we'd met him, Chaozu had learned how to psychically induce heart attacks and paralysis - among other things. And he had learned these attacks by practicing them on people that he didn't want to permanently disable. So he had also learned how to undo the damage. And for him... Undoing that kind of damage sometimes just meant using the same principles in reverse. So... This is important. Because Dende and also everyone who had learned healing from Dende - they are awsome but they had to be able to touch the creature that they were trying to heal. Chaozu didn't. His healing style was more psychic. He could attempt to heal someone just by focusing on them and getting into their minds, even their subconscious. Technically, he probably didn't even have to be anywhere near the person he was healing. He just had to be able to focus his mind on them. So... This has become another _'what if' _for us to contemplate. If Chaozu had let it be known sooner that he could try to function as a healer... What differences might that have made? Might it have changed the results of the 22nd and 23rd Budoukais? Might it have changed the way that things had turned out in every single one of the fights since then?

And what about the rest of them? Korin, Mister Popo, Yajirobe - if any of them had been active as healers sooner... How different things might have been.

We couldn't dwell on these thoughts. Uranai Baba was commanding our attention.

Even after the healing, Vegetas power level was zilch. Wouldn't make sense to have Uranai Baba reincarnate him without any energy. You can guess where this is heading, can't you? Vegeta - we didn't know if he would try to save the Earth on his own power. But what if... What if he had to try to save the Earth with _our_ power?

That's all that was being asked of us. To donate our power. Somehow, between us, we knew that we had to find the equivalent of Super Saiyan level 3. At least.

We hesitated. All of us. Even if we had been comfortable with the idea of handing our energy over to Vegeta - and we weren't - we didn't believe that we were strong enough. There was also the risk that if we gave too much energy then we'd wipe ourselves out of existence. Plus we were concerned with how Vegeta might react to all of this when he was reincarnated.

If Vegeta had been awake, I'm fairly sure that he would flat out refused to accept ki from anyone. But it wasn't his call. It was ours.

Around this time we felt Gohans ki appear on Earth. Which made us hesitate more because Gohan was stronger than ever. But Korin, Uranai Baba and Chaozu knew that Gohan couldn't win. Gohan had the strength and the motives but he lacked the anger. Gohan - like the rest of us - sincerely does not enjoy killing things. Whether or not you believe it, the kid carries guilt about Cells death. Gohan has always felt that since Cell was made from all of our DNA, the monster couldn't have been pure evil. We've told Gohan that obliterating Cell was the right thing to do but he doesn't completely believe us.

Who would have ever thought that we would actually NEED an arrogant homicidal maniac? Aw well. For better or worse, Vegeta is _our_ arrogant homicidal maniac. Earth is stuck with him and vice versa. I'm not saying that it's okay that Vegeta spent most of his young life running around in space decimating populated planets. I'm just saying that sometimes the only way to make things better is to let the past be the past. You can't let the past influence the future too much otherwise things can't grow and change and all that. Maybe to some degree Vegeta was an egotistical jerk simply because we expected him to be. Most of us had never really given him much of a chance to be anything but a villain.

He got the chance. Krillen turned out to be the rough equivalent of Super Saiyan. With power added in from myself, Puar(proving that you don't have to be a warrior to have abnormal amounts of ki), Chaozu, Master Roshi, Oolong(we had to threaten him a bit), Yajirobe, Android 18, Android 17(we had to threaten him as well), Ox King, ChiChi, Bulma, Lunch(we had to promise her the opportunity to shoot Vegeta later) and Videl - we got close to being the energy equivalent of Super Saiyan level 2.

You never truly realize how vast the power differences between the levels are until you try to reach them.

We felt Goku return to Earth. Trust him to do something that the rest of us didn't think was possible. I suppose we could have stopped donating power to Vegeta right then. But we didn't. Because we'd seen Goku fight Buu before. We knew that Goku would need all the help he could get. And the simple fact that we were willing to donate our energy to Vegeta... That kinda gave us new perspective on Goku, as well. Goku might have changed a ton personality-wise while dead but we knew that we had to give him another chance to keep our trust.

Tenshinhan arrived in the afterlife. He was dead, muttering about evil pink blobs and confused because Gohan wasn't around. We didn't take much time to explain anything to him. With the addition of Tenshin, we got past Super Saiyan level 2. Then Korin jumped in and Mr. Popo reluctantly finished it out. The instant that our group was the rough equivalent of Super Saiyan level 3, Uranai Baba and Vegeta both vanished. And that's just as well. It would have been too weird to have him actually try to thank us.

With that done, we spent some time getting caught up on the recent events of Earth. Tenshinhan had expected to find Gohan, Goten, Trunks and Piccolo in the afterlife as well because Buu had eaten them or something. Of course that would have been too easy, wouldn't it? Piccolo by himself is probably close to the equivalent of Super Saiyan level 2. If any of them had been in the afterlife then donating power to Vegeta wouldn't have required a group effort.

Because there were so few ki signatures on Earth, it was easier to detect all of them. So we knew that Dende and Mr. Satan were still alive. We sensed that Buu was almost constantly getting more dangerous. And we were surprised when Goku and Vegetas kis merged.

It only surprised us because we hadn't expected Vegeta to know any fusion techniques. He'd been dead by the time the fusion dance was mentioned - unless Goku had mentioned it at the tournament or somewhere else. So we didn't understand how they could have fused but it didn't matter much.

No, I'm sorry. It did matter. The little details, they _always_ matter - remember? We wouldn't learn about the fusion earrings until later but it's yet another one of those things... Some ancient immortal gave Goku a pair of magical earrings. If he wore one of them and got someone else to wear the other then they'd fuse. So Vegeta didn't know the fusion dance. Goku must have just stuck an earring on him. They fused. That was it. All there was to it. They became a brand new warrior. But think about this - what if we'd had access to the earrings sooner? What if we'd had them at the Lookout? Maybe Goten and Trunks wouldn't have needed to learn the fusion dance at all. Maybe the boys wouldn't have had to worry about trying to finish a battle before the fusion wore off. So maybe if Gotenks had been the result of wearing these earrings, he would have had a better chance to defeat Buu on his own. Then again... The fusion earrings will apparently work for anybody. So maybe we would have had a different fusion, maybe we would have been able to spare the kids from these battles. Maybe we would have seen fusion between Krillen and Piccolo. Maybe Krillen and Android 18. Maybe Goku and Gohan. Maybe Goku and whatever divine spirit had given him the earrings. Perhaps someone could have even attempted to force a fusion with Buu - if it had worked, that could have ended the battles. Right?

Anyway. Tenshinhan, Android 18, Android 17, Master Roshi and I had all been dead once before. Krillen had been dead twice before. That's what was going through our heads. That we were dead. Again. That this time it was final, that we couldn't be wished back to life. Again.

Yea. We were about to be proved wrong. Again. Strange how life and death can get so redundant.

**ooxoo**


	31. Secret successes

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 31: Secret successes**

**F**or reasons that were never really made clear to any of us, the Earth was blown up. That was the single loudest explosion I've ever heard. If I had been alive it probably would have rendered me deaf - as well as dead. However since I was already dead, I was able to keep my hearing.

The Earth was gone. Our home had been reduced to space dust. There was a real sense of finality in the event. An experience painful beyond words yet at the same time, kind of a relief. If the Earth was gone then nobody could endanger our world anymore. And those of us who'd been dead before, we didn't have to worry about being separated from the people that could be wished back to life. We thought that everyone would be able to stay together in the afterlife. We didn't think anyone could be wished back because there wasn't even a planet to be wished back to.

As soon as the Earth was blown up Gohan, Goten, Trunks and Piccolo appeared in the afterlife. Our group had a slightly muddled reunion. Goten, Trunks and Piccolo were all a year older because they'd been in the Room of Spirit and Time. So Trunks was now age 9, Goten was age 8 and Piccolo was 23 in Earth years. The boys were apologizing because they felt like they'd let us all down. Meanwhile Piccolo was too frustrated by the situation to even acknowledge us.

Gohan tried to explain that he'd been kidnapped by some gods and given a strange 24-hour anger management course that had made him more powerful. Which was actually pretty scary to consider. Granted, excessive amounts of anger - or any other emotion - does tend to impair a warriors judgment. However fighting IS meant to be somewhat emotional. Because you're never supposed to fight without a reason. If a person can always stay calm and detached then what is their motivation? If nothing can bother a person then why should they fight at all?

It's a delicate balance. You have to be able find the point where you are willing to risk yourself for what you feel yet not be overwhelmed by your feelings.

A few more notes about Gohans recent training. I want to mention the East Kaioshin. I never got to meet him in person but I did get to see him - he was the purple-skinned guy that Piccolo had forfeited to at the tournament. He was about Krillens height, dressed in formal robes and styling a mohawk of white hair. Really, it wouldn't surprise me if the tournament officials had tried to stick HIM in the kids competition. East Kaioshin didn't look like someone who was millions of years old and he hadn't acted like someone that outranked King Kai on our pantheon - but he was and he did. It's kind of staggering to think that someone who is supposed to represent the very soul of the whole universe would visit our planet. And the training... When Gohan told us about it, he made it sound as if he'd been sitting absolutely still for most of the time. That struck us as odd. It's not what we typically pictured when we heard the word 'training'. Yet the results were clear - there was no question that Gohan had become stronger. Do you have any idea how scary it is, to know that this kid can get stronger just by sitting still for long periods of time? And the last note... Gohan had done his training on a different world, the East Kaioshins planet. Gohan didn't even catch this until we talked to him but... The way Gohan described it, that world had at least a dozen moons. The moons were always visible in the sky. Gohan and Goku were both on that planet for a while, they must have noticed all the moons - yet they apparently didn't regrow their tails or transform into giant were-monkeys. We don't know why not.

Anyway. Looking back, I have to admit that Earths demise is just plain weird to think about. The whole planet blew up - but only four people had been killed in the explosion. Buu had killed nearly everyone else on Earth - either with the genocide attack or something else - prior to destroying the planet. This is what I really don't understand. If most everyone on Earth was already dead then wasn't blowing up the world kind of redundant? Doesn't it seem silly that someone would use a frickin planet-destroying technique just to try and kill all eight of the people that weren't dead yet? This would be comparable to using a nuclear missile to swat a housefly, right? Slight abuse of power.

Guess asking for an enemy with an IQ is too much. Heck, I guess asking for an enemy with a weakness is too much.

Oh. Right. Eight people had been alive on Earth before the place blew up. Only four had died in the explosion. Dende, Mister Satan, Goku and Vegeta were all still alive. Yea. Goku AND Vegeta - they weren't fused anymore. They'd separated. Maybe the explosion had destroyed those special earrings? I don't know. The four survivors weren't on Earth anymore but they were all still alive. And so was Buu. They'd all teleported to someplace else. They went to the East Kaioshins world, I've been told. So again - we have two Saiyans stuck on a world with multiple moons visible in the sky and yet no giant were-monkey transformations happened during the battle. Still no idea why not.

At this point the fight was too ridiculous to bother keeping track of. We didn't know at the time where the fight had resumed or how anyone could expect to win against Buu. The monster had decimated Earth without putting much of a dent in his own power level. Buu probably could have blown up a few more planets without even working up a sweat.

Even if Buu was miraculously defeated, we were all pretty sure that it wouldn't change anything. We expected to stay dead.

Uranai Baba came back to the afterlife. She wasn't dead but she appeared near our group. The psychic witch was grinning in a way that made it clear that she had seen a future that she liked. Next thing we knew, we were all alive again. On Earth. We accused Uranai Baba of casting an illusion spell.

Then Dende telepathically contacted everyone on Earth. He requested that we raise our hands to donate energy to Goku so that he could finish the battle. It was strange because Dende had accidentally started the request in an alien language - Namekian - before switching into Earth languages. Goku also made telepathic requests for energy. Vegeta even made a request although his was closer to being a threat. Then Mr. Satan made a request and apparently he won the general public over because after that the requests stopped.

What all of you who are reading this probably already know - and what we would soon learn - is that Goku defeated Buu.

What you might not know is that there were several other victories that day. Secret successes. Each one was important but most of them get overlooked.

We have to pause and give some major points to Dende, East Kaioshin, Muuri and Porunga. That's right, Porunga. The eternal dragon from planet Namek. Dende had realized that since we'd just used the Earth set of dragonballs yesterday, we wouldn't be able to summon Shenlong for a while. If you only use one wish at a time then you have to wait a few months between wishes while the dragonballs recharge. So with help, apparently from the East Kaioshin, Dende had gotten back to his native culture. He'd asked to use the Namekian dragonballs because he knew that the Earth set wouldn't be ready in time.

Muuri is the name of the Namek in charge of the Namekian dragonballs and he'd upgraded those so that now Porunga could reincarnate more than one person at a time. Porunga hadn't been able to do this before. It was awesome though because what this meant was that ALL the people that had been dead before - even people that Shenlong had reincarnated before - they didn't have to stay dead. Porunga doesn't have the same limits as Shenlong. Porunga can reincarnate people as many times as needed, as long as the person didn't die of natural causes. So everyone that had been dead - including those of us that had been dead multiple times - we were all truly alive again. We were all really on Earth again too. Porunga had restored our planet. Everyone noticed that they were alive and on Earth again. It's just that not many people knew who to give credit to for those miracles. The Nameks had been stranded on Earth once before, remember? They'd been without a home planet for a while. So they knew the value of having a dragon who could restore whole populations and whole worlds at one go. How the dragon can do this, I don't have any idea. Magic must be involved.

The other secret success is actually more of a secret. We call him Vegeta.

On May 7th, 774 A.D. I had asked Shenlong to reincarnate everyone on Earth that wasn't evil. And Vegeta had stayed dead. On May 8th, 774 A.D. we'd let Uranai Baba temporarily reincarnate Vegeta with our energy instead of his own. Later that same day Dende told Porunga to reincarnate everyone from Earth but leave the evil things dead. And Vegeta was fully reincarnated along with the rest of us. Which means that in just under 24 hours, Vegetas alignment had done a 180 degree turn. He'd gone from being evil enough for Shenlong to leave dead to being good enough to get reincarnated by Porunga.

Vegeta has never really figured out precisely how this happened. We don't plan on telling him. We're going to let the guy believe it was his own energy all along. It's just better that way. Won't damage his pride as much. We don't want him to feel like he owes us or anything because he doesn't. After all, he did help to save the Earth. The very same planet that he'd been out to conquer once upon a time.

Goku, Vegeta, Mr. Satan, a puppy and a miniature version of Buu - we were told that he was pure good and therefore allowed to be left alive - joined us on Earth. Goku had been fully reincarnated as well. He told us that the battle was over. Dende returned to Earth and promised that when the Earth set of dragonballs were useable, he'd get Shenlong to make everyone forget the terrible events of the last couple days. We asked that our memories be left intact. Dende said okay.

For the first time ever the victory felt right. It felt like a victory. A total victory. Only the evil things were dead at the end. Nobody was injured. Nothing was damaged beyond repair. There was no reason to be sad. The Earth was back, the whole non-evil population of the Earth was back and all of us - the whole entire group - we were all there.

That hadn't happened before. Not once. Seriously. We all have our own schedules and everything. Was just sort of bizarre and neat to see how much the group had grown.

For anyone wondering, the whole group is as follows and I'm putting ages in brackets for the people whose ages I'm reasonably sure of. Master Roshi(age 344), Uranai Baba(524+), Oolong(34), Umigame, Ox King, ChiChi(37), Goku(38), Gohan(18), Goten(8), Videl, Mr. Satan, Android 17, Android 18, Krillen(38), Marron(3), Tenshinhan(41), Lunch(40), Chaozu, Korin(835+), Yajirobe, Piccolo(23), Dende, Mr. Popo, Dr. Briefs, Mrs. Briefs, Vegeta(44), Bulma(41), Trunks(9), Puar(34) and I(41). There was also a puppy named Bee and Kid Buu, who is either over five million years old or under a day old depending on your perspective.

Quite a group, huh?

Remember back when I was just 16? The group had been Goku, Bulma, Oolong, Puar and I. We were all still there, 25 years older and a bit worse for the wear but we were all there. And still friends. Not quite as good of friends as we had been once but still friends. Looking at how many other friends and allies we'd picked up along the way... Yea. It had been a long, weird and sometimes difficult journey - but worth it. I'd made a difference in the end, if only indirectly.

I will always be glad that I've had the chance to belong to something like that. Glad that I'd been there practically from the start. Made me appreciate how much the group had accomplished.

But 25 years is a long time to do anything. We sort of knew - the adventure was over. Our days of chasing dragonballs and saving the world, it was finally over. We all needed to let someone else do that for a while. Our lives would go on and maybe we'd even stay in touch but it was just time to do something different. Nobody had to say anything. There was a sense of peace that spoke for itself. We were getting older, we couldn't keep up with the world anymore. We had other priorities now. We needed to enjoy life while we still had it. At that precise moment - there was nothing left for any of us to prove.

The group split again. No one really said goodbye. It was the bittersweet feeling you get at a reunion. You're happy to see everyone but you have the sinking feeling that next time you all get together, it'll probably be for someones funeral

**ooxoo**


	32. Where we are now

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**Part 32: Where we are now**

**T**he battle with Buu was ten years ago.

It's been an amazing ten years. Amazingly peaceful that is. Not one single evil thing has shown up to endanger the Earth. Knock on wood, maybe it won't happen anytime soon.

Directly after the battles with Buu, our group did keep in touch. For a while. We were all really good about checking in with each other - but it didn't last long. We have each gotten caught up in our own lives and besides, I think we all suffer from the _no news is good news_ mentality. To be honest with you, until I started writing this I wasn't sure what was going on with several of my friends. Simply because I hadn't heard from them in so long. Writing this has given me a reason to call them again.

So it's 784 A.D. Ten years later. Where are we now?

Let's see...

Uranai Baba is now around age 534. At least. She's still the richest woman in the world as well as the most adept fortune-teller and magician on the planet. She visits the Kame House occasionally but we don't see her often. Not that we ever have. The witch has remained elusive.

Master Roshi is age 354. He leans a little more heavily on his cane nowadays and doesn't wear the oversized weighted turtle shell anymore. He's starting to lose his eyesight too. He had a TerraSave magazine on his head the other day instead of the usual adult magazine because he couldn't tell the difference. Sad to see him getting older. Master Roshi is still in pretty good shape though. Will take a while for age to undo three hundred years worth of martial arts training. He's kept his sense of humor as well, he just isn't as quick with it anymore. Honestly Master Roshi could outlive the whole group. But if he did that, we don't know if he'd remember any of us. He's slipping.

Oolong recently turned 44 years old. Although he still looks the same as when we met him - back when he was age 9 - he is a lot more mellow, mature and serious than he used to be. He's also not as cowardly. The experience of dying and being reincarnated deeply effected Oolong, he's not as easy to scare now. Roshi and Oolong have remained best friends so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Oolong is still living at the Kame House. He has the full time job of keeping Roshi out of trouble. He reminds Master Roshi to take his pills. Just day-to-day stuff like that. Oolong is basically a live-in nurse and counselor. He's also still an accountant, he manages all of Roshis finances. Which means that Oolong is the one paying most of the bills at the Kame House.

Umigame, the giant sea turtle, left the Kame House one day about six years ago. He hasn't been seen since. We did look for him, Master Roshi especially, but without success. Maybe Umigame went to stay with a family of sea turtles. Maybe he got lost on land somewhere. Where ever Umigame is, we just hope that he's all right. The Kame House isn't quite the same without him. You know, why call it a turtle house if the turtle is gone?

Other residents of the Kame House still include Krillen, Android 18 and Marron.

Krillen is 48 now. He's starting to get really paranoid about death. He's just so... accustomed isn't the right word to use because you don't get accustomed to dying. He has just been killed about once every ten years or so and now he expects it. Recall that Krillen was age 17 when Piccolo Daimios sidekick killed him, age 27 when Freezia got him and age 38 when Buu murdered all of us. So... Yea. Krillen honestly doesn't expect to live to age 50. I can't blame him for being pessimistic. But I have been avoiding him lately because it's no fun to be around a prophet of doom. He's impossible to cheer up right now. And of course, he's as dangerous as ever. The paranoia motivates him to keep training.

Aside from that Krillen has a relatively nice, normal family life on a peaceful tropical island. More than once he has given serious thought to becoming a professional martial arts sensei. However he always ends up deciding that the Kame House is crowded enough without adding students to the mix. If Krillen has ever had any other type of career ambitions - and I'm sure that he has - then I haven't heard about them yet.

Still have no idea what Android 18s age is but she will probably never look it. 18s natural talent is for designing things. She's currently the proud costume designer for a drama club that Marron joined. Between that and her family, 18 stays busy. Android 18 cares a lot for her husband and daughter. She makes a point of spending time with them - sparring or studying or just watching a movie. She also visits the Son House on a regular basis. 18 still regards ChiChi as a sister. However it's generally wise not to mention Android 17 in her presence. You can never be sure what her reaction will be. Sometimes they're on good terms but those times seem few and far between.

I've heard that Android 17 is living out in a cabin someplace where he's making a living as a hunter but I really don't know. I haven't seen 17 in ages. Haven't heard much about him either. Guess that Android 18 had wanted her brother to move into the Kame House at some point and 17 refused. They've been arguing ever since.

Little three year old Marron has grown up into a rather emotional girl of 13 and like most teenagers, she's a socialite. She needs people. She enjoys hanging out with friends. Which means that Marron often resents living on an isolated and small island. There's been some friction about that. Marron cares about both of her parents but she thinks that they need to get out more. Having grown up with Goten around the Kame House so much, Marron still regards him as an older brother. She lives at the Kame House but also has her own room at the Son House. Just because the Son House is closer to her high school. Marron is in the drama club and band and all that. Sometimes practice starts very early in the day and sometimes, if the drama club is putting on a play after school or if the band is going to a football game - she might be out late. So she likes to be closer to the school because then she doesn't have to get up as early in order to be there on time or worry about finding her way home in the dark. At the Son House, she's probably staying in the room that used to be Gohans.

Gohan is now age 28. He and Videl were married shortly after they graduated from high school, they were both around age 19. They got their parents permission for the wedding but didn't actually invite anyone to the ceremony. Guess they wanted to avoid the media. Dende and Mister Popo might be the only ones that witnessed their marriage and that's because Dende personally performed it. Videl and Gohan waited a year to move into their own house - it took them that long to find a house that they liked - and another year to start a family. They were both around age 23 when Videl gave birth to a healthy little girl. They named their daughter Pan.

Of everything in the world that has ever made me feel old, knowing that Gohan has a kid... Eesh. I mean, I first met Goku back when he was just 12! I knew both Goku and ChiChi for eight whole years before they ever had a kid. To think that ChiChi and Goku are _grandparents _now. And that they're _younger_ than me. Ack...

Bright as he is, Gohan keeps changing jobs. He says that doing a job is the only way to find out if he can stand it. Lately he's been getting into politics. Seems possible that Gohan could end up being the mayor of Satan City. He's certainly got the connections for that. Initially Videl was torn between being a traditional housewife and pursuing her dreams of working in law enforcement. For the moment she seems content to be a housewife since she feels that it's her duty to be that way. She wants to be a stay-at-home mom for Pan awhile longer. However she does intend to get into law enforcement someday. So Videl helps out at her fathers dojo from time to time, to stay in shape and keep her reflexes sharp. She has some good sparring partners there.

Mr. Satan returned to his martial arts school, along with Kid Buu and a puppy named Bee. The puppy is now a large dog. Buu has been living with Mr. Satan and has essentially been adopted. Rather than being best friends, they have developed a father-son relationship. Buu idolizes his 'Dad' since he feels that nobody else in the universe ever really accepted him for what he was. We are all still a bit nervous of the pink monster. He still has a ridiculous amount of power and can cast all sorts of magic. Thankfully, he's been preoccupied. Owning a dog seems to have kept Buu happy and busy. He lives and trains around Mr. Satan but is more interested in playing than being a professional fighter. The monster loves trying to teach new tricks to Bee. It just makes you think. If only we could have defeated more villians by giving them stray puppies to raise...

Anyway. Buu has also discovered video games. Which is a miracle, considering the way that most electrical appliances blow up in his presence. Then again... Maybe he is able to enchant objects so that they can withstand him. Don't know. what I do know is that Buu was recently on the cover of a gamer magazine. He's the current Tetris World Champion. He could have been the Champion of the Earth.

On May 7th, 778 A.D. the 26th Tenkaichi Budoukai took place. None of us entered. Kid Buu eliminated all the decent contenders. Then in the final match, Buu deliberately lost to Mr. Satan. In 781 A.D. it happened again at the 27th Tenkaichi Budoukai. Mr. Satan won, Buu took second place. They will probably continue to do this until Mr. Satan is too old to fight. Although both Goku and Vegeta are planning to enter the 28th Tenkaichi Budoukai which is scheduled to take place this year - so it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Mr. Hercule Satan has remained fairly corny. He is still capable of confidently giving speeches which are so ridiculous that even the inanimate objects near him will actually sweatdrop. It's kind of amazing that so many people continue to idolize him when even random ordinary streetlamps and buildings have expressed their doubt in this way. But it's easier to respect him now because he respects us. Mr. Satan never took full credit for saving the world from Buu, the one time that I guess he actually could have done so with some degree of validity. He's made amends with Goku, Gohan, Vegeta and everyone else. Just because he wanted Videl to be happy. And while he's still a bit of a con-man, he's cleaned up his act a lot because he wants to be a good role model for Buu as well as Pan. Mr. Satan is ecstatic to be a grandparent and seems to have plans to spoil Pan rotten. He'd never publically admit it, of course, but he is a tad intimated by his cute and extremely dangerous grandchild.

Pan is age 5. She looks a lot like ChiChi used to and I'm told that she can beat up Mr. Satans entire martial arts class, including Mr. Satan, without getting tired. Despite her young age, Pan insists on being treated like an adult.

The most noteworthy thing about Pan is her extended family. Because of how things are set up Pan considers Marron, Krillen, Android 18 and Buu to be blood relatives. Since Buu is sort of Videls adopted brother, that makes him Pans uncle. And Marron... If you were to put Marron in a room with Android 18 and ChiChi and have Marron say "mom" then both of the older women would respond. It would be a similar situation if you put Goten in a room with Goku and Krillen and had Goten say "dad". So Pan views Goten as an uncle, Marron as an aunt and has adopted Krillen and Android 18 as an extra set of grandparents.

Which doesn't bother any of her other grandparents.

Goku is age 48 and ChiChi is 47. After Buus defeat ten years ago, they got to do something that they'd never expected to be able to do. They went home. Together. It has taken ten years for them to just adapt to being around each other again but it's clear that they love every minute - even if they don't expect it to last. They are both restless. Goku still trains and has remained a bit distant. He feels that one of these days, something evil is going to show up again. He acts like peace is too good to be true.

ChiChi more or less agrees. She has become a lot more stable now since she has so much family around to be occupied with. ChiChi is finally living her dream. She feels needed. The kids all confide in her because she's not a superpowered warrior, she's a normal person. ChiChi knows more about all the normal stuff - cooking, how to get stains out of clothes, who to call for roof repairs, etc - than anyone else related to the kids. She has become a good listener. She gives practical advice. It's great for everyone around ChiChi to see her doing so well.

It's also very very good for ChiChi because Ox King probably won't be with us much longer. Ox King is still alive and happy to be a great-grandfather. Unfortunately he's developed some sort of complex medical problem where his bones can't support his weight anymore. He's moved into the Son House and has been confined to a wheelchair but his condition is terminal. He isn't getting better. Last time I saw Ox King, he looked really sickly. Frail even. He's lost an unhealthy amount of weight. If he hadn't still been wearing that cow-horn helmet of his then I wouldn't have recognized him.

Losing her father is going to be painful but I know it would hurt ChiChi more if she didn't have the emotional support from the rest of her family. And yeah... I can almost hear you all thinking that we could just wish Ox King back to life. Maybe even wish him back to health. But part of the lesson in this - for all of us - is that death isn't something that we can avoid forever. And the dragonballs can't reincarnate a person who dies of natural causes - remember? Even if they could... Ox King doesn't want to be reincarnated. Ox King is a nice guy and has remained fairly cheerful even as his health is fading but he truly wants to die and stay dead. He's been exceptionally clear on that point. Because Ox King feels that he's had a good life and has done everything that he needed to do. Plus he is still deeply in love with his wife and his wife has been dead for nearly fifty years. So Ox King openly views his own death as a way to finally be reunited with the lady that he married. He has missed her and is ready to see her again.

Sometimes people are just ready to die. It's not always an easy concept for those of us who are alive to accept - but it's not always a bad thing. ChiChi loves her father enough to let him go since that is what he really wants. She can see that Ox King is at peace with the decision. She hasn't tried to change his mind. ChiChi might be angry, sad and upset about the prospect of losing her father - which is a natural reaction and will take time to process - but I have it on good authority that she hasn't actually been angry, sad or upset AT him. So that makes things less traumatic for everyone involved. And it means that ChiChi has really gotten better at dealing with her emotions. And again, there is no doubt that having the support of the rest of her family definitely helps.

Goten is currently age 18 and he's his mothers best friend. He barely remembers what happened ten years ago. He's become this tall, lanky kid that's girl-crazy and intelligent but kinda scatter brained. He seems to get lost in daydreams half the time. Goten is finishing up high school and debating what he wants to do for the rest of his life. His ambitions change every other week but he's narrowing it down. Unless he actually does decide to become an elementary school teacher, Goten seems to be headed for a career in animation. He has politely refused to work at Mr. Satans dojo and has also turned down the offer of a part-time job from Caspule Corp. Goten doesn't train anymore. He wishes that Goku wouldn't.

So... Who will be the next Kame-sennin? With Master Roshi starting to slip, the question has been on our minds lately. Who on Earth is qualified to preserve the Kame style? Yea. I'm inserting this tangent here because we've already covered most of the candidates. Krillen is beyond qualified but he thinks that he's going to die. Ox King, as a former student of Roshis, is qualified but he is ready to die. ChiChi, Gohan, Android 18, Goten and Marron - not one of them has expressed a genuine interest in taking over the Kame school. Neither have I.

Err. Mr. Satan DID express an interest in learning the Kame style. He even offered to combine his own school with Roshis. That went over like a lead balloon. Mr. Satans dojo has been called many things but at the moment, he is calling his core method the Rocket style. If Master Roshi hadn't assaulted him for the mere suggestion of combining schools then Mr. Satan would seriously have taken over and renamed it the Rocket Turtle style. Which would have been weird as well as confusing for all of his students. Kame style and Rocket style are based off different principles - they each have a different tactical emphasis. The styles have almost nothing in common, in other words. Combining them would be like telling the students to hurry up and wait - at the same time. It's been done in the past with other styles, other martial arts schools have combined, but the result doesn't always make a lot of sense.

Videl has already committed to someday inheriting her fathers dojo. Since the schools definitely won't be combined now, Videl is not going to be the next Kame-sennin - but she might be the next Rocket Master. Pan might also choose to inherit from Mr. Satan. Oolong could be trained to take over the Kame dojo but he'd rather tie weights to his feet and jump off a cliff. Buu could be trained to take over any martial arts school but he thinks that school is boring. So the future Kame-sennin... Well. Now you know why Goku has taken an interest in the 28th Tenkaichi Budoukai. Master Roshi is still recognized as a legendary pioneer of energy combat but Goku is the current active Kame Master. Goku hasn't talked about this much but with his reputation, it's clear that he's not going to the tournament just for kicks and he's not going to fight like he has anything left to prove. Because he doesn't, not as far as we know. We think he's planning to look at all the contenders, select someone for training and eventually let them take over the Kame school. So the future of the Turtle style... We don't know, yet, exactly who is going to be responsible for it. We're trusting Goku to pick a good student. Like I said before, it'll be interesting to see what happens.

I'm really not sure where Piccolo is or what he's doing. I know that he's age 33 in Earth years which means that he's 99 in Namek years but that's about it. I've heard that he moved up to the Lookout which would explain why we don't see him much anymore.

Speaking of the Lookout, I guess Mister Popo is still up there taking care of the garden and helping watch over the planet. No idea how old he is.

Dende - sorry but I don't know his exact age - doesn't spend as much time at the Lookout anymore. Reminds him too much of everything that happened. He feels bad about having let the Earth blow up. It gets to him that he - the Kami of Earth, the guy who's responsible for the planets well being - couldn't do anything to save the world. So Dende now spends his time either wandering around on Earth in disguise or up in the heavens, trying to learn certain magical skills from older gods. Seems that Dende has become rather bitter and homesick for planet Namek although he tries not to let it show.

Can't blame him. Being the guardian is tough. Dende has been on the job for nearly eighteen Earth years now. He doesn't ever really get to take a day off and, being Namekian, he doesn't need to sleep. So he probably also works nights. By the Namekian calendar, he has been away from his home world for over fifty years. During all that time, as far as we know, he has only gotten to see his relatives once. For a moment when he wishing the Earth back into existance after the battles with Buu. And after seeing his kin for that one moment while making the wishes... The other Nameks had changed since Dende had last seen them. And that was ten years ago. So they are likely still changing, growing and aging. So the idea - the sheer weight of the responsibilty that he'd accepted by becoming our guardian - must have begun to sink in. And time just keeps on passing.

It wasn't just that his Namekian family was older. It was that the family had grown. After Dende had left his native world, other Nameks had continued to be born there. Dende used to know everyone on his planet. The Nameks had been stranded together for two years. So the Nameks who were reincarnated after the battles against Freezia, they did all get to know each other. Better. They became more tight knit. They felt extra compelled to stick together while stuck on this alien world called Earth. But they'd known each other before. Those antenna aren't just for looks - most of the Nameks could communicate with each other telepathically. As long as they were on the same world. Dende... I don't know if he's out of range of his home planet. Maybe he can't easily connect with them anymore. And he doesn't know them all anymore, either. He saw evidence of that last time he visited. There are a few generations on planet Namek that he has never met and might never meet. That's probably an awkward truth for him to be faced with.

And the fact that Dende could someday concievably outlive all of us, his friends on Earth... That's got to be awkward, too. Because he might have taken the job in order to hang out with us more. I don't know. But our last guardian - Kami - had served our world for three hundred years. So for Dende... The job is perhaps only just starting for him. He likely didn't realize how long the committment would be. Maybe Dende wouldn't have been so eager to take the job, if he'd realized that. So on top of everything else - the guilt, anger and sorrow from not being able to defend the world better - Dende is probably feeling trapped. He has good friends to turn to for support but it's something that he has to figure out on his own, to a certain degree. Nobody can force him to stay on the job or be happy about it. We'll see what he does.

They don't grow senzu beans at Korins Tower anymore. Once Korin and Yajirobe had learned healing magic from Dende, they stopped growing the senzu beans. Goten, Trunks, Marron - the kids have grown up without knowing what a senzu bean is. It's weird to think of how heavily we used to rely on those things.

Korin is around 845 years old now. He has said that he will probably retire from Korins Tower when he reaches the age of 900. Korin insists that 900 years of being around one planet is long enough. He wants to go explore other places. If any of us are still here in 55 years, we'll have to throw him a farewell party.

Despite currently being in his late fifties, it's very likely that Yajirobe will be around. During the thirty or so years that he's lived at the tower Yajirobe has become a qualified martial arts sensei - the Cat Master - and a minor god. So his lifespan has been extended considerably. He will probably outlive most of us. He's kept training too. Yajirobe is a lot more dangerous than he used to be. Yet he remains as cautious and reserved as ever. Yajirobe isn't sure how he'll run the tower when Korin leaves and doesn't look forward to the day when his best friend departs Earth. He also really hopes that Dende will stay because he doesn't want to risk being promoted to Guardian.

Chaozu went east on his own about eight years ago. We get postcards from him sometimes. He's glad to be back in his native homeland although things are much different than they used to be - in the sense that he's not an emperor anymore. He seems kind of sad when we hear from him but he always says that it's good to be home. No one is sure of Chaozus age but more than once we've paused to wonder if he felt like going east because he wanted to die there. The problem with Chaozu is that in addition to being psychic, he has always been able to suppress all of his ki. When he doesn't want to be found then nobody is going to be able to find him. We would look for Chaozu if we thought it would do any good. Once or twice we've gone to the places that he mailed a postcard from but we haven't found a trace of him. Tenshinhan has asked us not to search anymore. He doubts that Chaozu is in danger.

Tenshinhan is currently age 51 and Lunch is 50. Lunch doesn't have her violent personality-changing moodswings as much anymore and Tenshinhan says that he has mostly stopped training. Like the rest of us, they're still millionaires because of good investments. So they've decided to enjoy their retirement. They've adopted a few stray dinosaurs as pets and are touring the world at a relaxed pace, just because they want to see everything. They are always somewhere different when we hear from them but they seem happy to be together. Lunch and Tenshinhan never did have a formal wedding but technically this year marks their 31st Anniversary. And they still act like shy newlyweds around each other.

Another couple that has never had a ceremony is Bulma and Vegeta. Bulma is 51 now and Vegeta is 54. They have both mellowed out tons. Part of it might be due to age but the rest is just because they've been through a lot. They've spent the last ten years finding themselves again, coming to terms with everything and getting their priorities straight.

More than dying, the whole experience of being possessed by Babidi - and later, the experience of being fused with Goku - has really impacted Vegetas outlook on everything in life. His ego doesn't have its own national anthem anymore, that's the main thing. Vegeta almost constantly blames Goku for making him soft. And of course Goku doesn't mind since it gives him an excuse to spar with his favorite punching bag. No. Vegeta doesn't go out of his way to be kind - can you imagine how badly that would creep the rest of us out? - but he is just not quite as mean as he used to be. He's not as much of a bully. He keeps busy. He doesn't seem to have as much time for picking on everyone. So he's much more tolerant of _'Earth weaklings' _now. Especially his kids. Yea, kids. Plural. Vegeta is the father of two now. His second child is a little girl named Bura.

Bura appears to be a small clone of her mother. She is currently four and a half years old but she has grown up - mentally and physically - at a phenomenal rate. Most people would swear that she's at least six. Bura has inherited the Briefs family genius and skipped ahead in school. Already. At this rate the kid will be in college by the time she's ten. She's probably never going to have many friends her own age.

Bulma and Vegeta both cherish Bura though and so do Bulmas parents.

Like Bulma, Dr. and Mrs. Briefs still devote themselves to Capsule Corp as well as to their own private projects. They don't want to retire because they honestly love their work. However neither Bulma nor her parents are doing quite as much as they used to with the company. They've slowed down a bit. They're all making more of an effort to spend time with the rest of their family.

Trunks is now age 19. He's as tall as me and as shy as I used to be. He's never really gotten accustomed to being an older brother. Bura does use this to her advantage. Around her brother, Bura assumes that she is the boss. Trunks goes along with this once in awhile but tends to avoid his sister. He cares about his image and doesn't want it widely known that he has sometimes taken orders from a girl who is nearly fifteen years younger than him. So...uhm...maybe you could pretend that you didn't just read that?

About three years ago Trunks dropped out of school completely because he was bored there. Also because the people made him uncomfortable. He took some tests to earn a high school equivalent degree and has been working part-time at Capsule Corp ever since. He likes the job but hates most of the people that he works around. He doesn't feel that his co-workers take him seriously. Trunks has been going to college for the past couple years, he's studying astrophysics. Capsule Corp has built spaceships once or twice but never for the mass market. Trunks wants to take the company in that direction because he's convinced that commercial space flight is the next big step in the technical revolution. In his own words, he wants to change the world without blowing anything up.

That covers everyone. Except for Puar and I.

Puar is age 44. She returned to law school for a bit and is now a judge. She shapeshifted to become a humanoid cat since the judge uniform didn't fit her otherwise and also because she wanted to be tall enough to be easily seen. So I now live with a humanoid cat. Yea. She stays shapeshifted. This is Puars choice. She wanted to do this. It just makes her life - her work - easier. Sometimes when she takes a vacation, she goes back to being a little cat but most of the time she stays humanoid.

Er. Yea. It did take a while to get used to seeing Puar as humanoid. There are still times when she acts like a little cat. Among other things, she's had to relearn how to walk. I saw her floating down the hall once and I don't think she was even aware that she was doing it. She was just so used to floating everywhere.

Puar is around five and half feet tall with short fuzzy blue-gray hair. Heh. Puar finally looks her age. She kept her ears, nose, whiskers, paws and tail because she didn't want to lose the support and trust of the animal community. Puar often presides over court cases that involve animal rights. When she's not busy at work, she's either visiting schools or being interviewed by the media. Ever seen those commercials where a celebrity tells you the importance of going to school? Puar does those. It's become her personal mission in life to encourage other animals to get professional careers. She's created a foundation that gives scholarships to non-human students, she calls it the Evolution Fund.

We're down to me.

As I write this, I'm age 51. I've still got my health. I'm still happily single. I still golf professionally and I try to get out to the desert hideout a few times a year to clean the sand out of everything.

Since everyone I know is wealthy enough to take care of themselves, I've put all my money into good causes. The Evolution Fund, TerraSave, the World Historical Society, the Indian Council and a whole list of places that do medical research without experimenting on animals. I also own enough Capsule Corp stock to heavily influence the companies future. So I get invited to formal financial meetings all the time because I'm a major sponsor of these things.

During the summer and fall, I volunteer as a coach. For a little league team. The West Capital City Wildcats. I swear, I didn't name the team! It's just a coincidence! And I was reluctant to do this at first - what do I know about coaching? I'd never gotten the hang of the signals. - but it's turned out to be a good thing. I'm glad that a couple of my former team mates talked me into this. The kids are great - they couldn't care less about winning. They're just out to have fun. None of these kids were alive back when I was playing pro baseball. Heck most of these kids weren't alive ten years ago, when Buu was attacking the Earth. But some of the kids eventually recognized me anyway since they collect baseball cards. I don't think I've ever been so flattered in my life.

Mostly I live on a day-to-day basis. Don't have any real long-term plans because who knows how much will change in the next couple years. Better to stick with short-term stuff. My one important project - and I hope this doesn't sound selfish - but I don't want to be forgotten. Not after everything I've been through.

And that's why I'm writing this now.

I won't swear that everything I've written here is a hundred percent accurate. I'm writing things the way that I remember them and I doubt that my recall is perfect. But I know that I haven't distorted the story all that much. I do in fact have proofreaders and they wouldn't have let me screw things up too badly.

The story recorded here is only half the point. You, the readers, are the main point. Because I don't know if anyone else will remember me once I'm gone. I don't know who will outlive me. Oh sure. I expect for Gohan, Videl, Trunks, Goten and Marron to outlive me. I expect for Pan and Bura to outlive me. I even expect for Dende and Yajirobe to outlive me. Wouldn't be surprised if Korin and Madame Uranai Baba outlive me. But hey - what if they don't? What if something comes up? You just can't ever be sure. So I hope that whoever you are, maybe you can learn from my mistakes or use my advice. Maybe you'll gain a better understanding of people in general. Maybe you'll realize that life is terribly fragile and yet death isn't something to be afraid of. I dunno.

Be yourselves and try to enjoy it. The rest will work itself out in the end. That's all.

**ooxoo**


	33. Epilogue: Dear DoraMouse

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**D**ear DoraMouse,

Just a note to say thanks for letting me use your account to put the story up. Made more sense to do it this way, I didn't feel like opening my own account just for one story. Not like anyone would have believed that it was me anyway. Glad you'll be keeping tabs on it. Will be interesting to see what the reaction is.

About writing to the others as well - sure you can. Heck, you don't need my permission. I do advise some caution though because no matter who you address a letter to the odds are high that other people will read it. For example any mail that goes to either the Kame House or the Son House will likely be seen by Oolong, Krillen, Marron, Android 18, Goten, Goku, ChiChi, Ox King and/or possibly Uranai Baba. Anything that gets mailed to Capsule Corp will probably be seen by half the employees there, Vegeta, Bulma, Bura, Trunks and both of Bulmas parents.

Just be aware of that. Choose your words carefully and you'll be fine. Don't write anything that you wouldn't want certain people reading. Don't expect quick replies either because everyone here tends to be busy.

In regard to the addresses that you don't already have... Well, I'd tell you if I knew. I don't think that Korins Tower actually has an address. It's not on any mail route. Same for Kamis Lookout, the post office just can't reach the place. And Tenshinhan and Lunch are both on the road a lot. What would work better if you're trying to reach Ten-san, Lunch, Yajirobe, Korin, Dende, Piccolo or Mister Popo would be to have them write to you first. I could pass your address on if you wanted. Let me know.

Videl and Gohan have asked that their address not be given out for security reasons since they both still do crimefighting occasionally. You can reach either of them - in addition to Pan - by sending mail to the Son House or to Mr. Satans dojo. However be warned that any mail that gets sent to Mr. Satans home might get eaten by Buu.

Chaozu and Android 17 have both broken contact with the rest of us. We have a vague idea of what part of the world each of them is in but we don't have specific addresses for either of them. I suppose your best bet for trying to reach them by mail would probably be to write to Uranai Baba first. If anyone can find Chaozu or Android 17, she can. She might charge for her services though - you'd have to ask her about that.

I'll have to reply to the rest of your letter next time as I'm on my way to a meeting and rather anxious to mail this note before it gets lost somewhere. Hope that life is treating you well. Please let me know how the story does.

Ja ne.

_- Yamucha_

**ooxoo**


	34. Letter to the Author

_**The Yamucha Chronicle**_

**ooxoo**

**D**ear Yamucha-san,

Happy New Year! I twisted my paper wishes to the branch of a cherry tree, we'll see what blooms come. Did you get to watch the kites?

I apologize for not writing to you sooner. Time seems to pass so quickly.

Wanted you to know that the story has done wonderfully. It was especially well recieved on its first time up - there were literally hundreds of reviews - but I can understand and appreciate the need to revise. I hope that the expanded version will find its audience and get the recognition that it deserves. You are an amazing person, whether or not you care to admit it. You have touched, changed and saved far more lives than you realize. Hey, considering how few people in your world are truly aware of all the times that your world has been defended... You have touched, changed and saved far more lives than THEY realize and it was THEIR lives.

You have, perhaps, done more than even YOU realize and it is YOUR life.

Have you already seen Krillens story? It's pretty clear that he's read some of yours. He's followed our lead, it appears. The story was in progress, last I checked, posted online under the title of _Kuririn: Only Human_ with the help of a mysterious Tim333. Hrm. Noticed that he prefers the other spelling of his name. Sorry about that Kuririn-san! I'll try to be a better proofreader! What really surprised me though, was his approach. Sometimes I wonder how much of your infamous shyness remains with you, Yamucha-san. Because while what you have written here is a wonderful overview of the events, as best as you remember them... Kuririn-san has an absolutely startling way of bringing things up in intense striking detail. He is an exceptionally talented writer and brave, to bear his soul that way. He lures the emotion out of the memories and reflects on the significance of the actions. Your stories draw a lot of parallels, as one might expect, but you don't always agree with each other as far as when-exactly-what-happened. I guess it's understandable that even the things which you experienced together would be bound to be remembered a little differently. But some of the things that you never mentioned... Yamucha-san, his story is almost a better portrait of you than your own work! Kuririn-san persistantly gives you the credit that you seem to deny yourself.

You are more than capable of writing with that kind of depth, I bet. Wonder why you haven't. Hrm. We have been penpals for a while now, though. I think I can guess.

So I am going to follow Kuririn-sans lead and endeavor to give you a slice of the credit that you deny yourself, as well.

Goku is indeed a hero and an awesome person. He gives - and has given and will continue to give, it appears - hope to your world. But please pause to consider: where did he get hope from? There you are then, Yamucha-san. You and Kuririn-san and the others in your group: the thing that binds you all is having Gokus respect. You are the friends that shaped and inspired the hero. You trained with him and supported him and stood by his side against impossible odds. You've mourned his deaths and celebrated his life. Even if you have not always been able to accomplish what you wished to in battle, the effects of your presence have been profound. You are the heros of the hero. You have done for each other, as well, what you did for Goku.

Truthfully it is only fitting that the scope of your inspiration should reach beyond your own world. As friends, what all of you have accomplished is just that rare.

And yet the moment that most captures the essence of all this, in my humble opinion, was the moment with Vegeta. He came back to Earth. He didn't have to but he must have chosen to. He asked for help. No one had to agree. You, especially, Yamucha-san... What went through your head in that moment? All that you knew about Freezia was what you had been told. Vegeta, a warrior that had always been stronger and that you knew to have died against Freezia - was asking for help. Kuririn, a friend that had your trust and respect, a teacher as much as a peer... He had struggled for a week on an alien planet to keep the hopes of two worlds alive and had also died against Freezia. But he was willing to fight and risk death again. They both were. So were Gohan and Piccolo, each of whom had narrowly escaped from death against Freezia the first time around. And you could sense, by then, that all of them were yet stronger now than they had ever been. You could sense, by then, their own fears at the mention of Freezias name. When they asked for help to confront the monster again... You could have laughed and walked away. You could have told them they were insane. You could have excused yourself from all future training. But you didn't. You stood with your friends and even a semi-enemy. You may speak of honor and duty, of the responsibilty that comes with power, the logical need to defend the world... But to the people that you stood with, shoulder to shoulder, when the battle lines were drawn... The way you have acted, you have always tried to give them a measure of hope.

When you leave out the depths of your fear, in such moments, it is harder for an audience to appreciate the levels of courage that you must have found within yourself to overcome those fears.

Please do not ever doubt your value. And please kick and then hug Kuririn-san, if he should ever dare to doubt his.

If Goku had been left out in the wild or discovered by another group - could he have become a hero in his own right? It's a scary thought, isn't it? Because Pilaf and also the Red Ribbon Army, they were after they dragonballs. They would have found Goku eventually. If they had found him first... If he had befriended them and taken their side...

I don't even live on your world and it scares me. And that's just the tip of the proverbial _'what if'_ iceberg. Stay off that thing, my friend. It's not healthly to linger there so much.

About the addresses: thank you. It did take a while but I have had some replies. Korins Tower and Kamis Lookout are, as it turns out, not exactly beyond the reach of the postal service. Even in our world, letters addressed 'dear god' don't get thrown away. They just get stacked up in a vault somewhere, I think. Maybe they get recycled after a while. In your world, Yamucha-san, there are better odds for an eventual reply. Dende-sama has nice handwriting. If you're ever looking for him, I recommend taking a closer look at postal workers. I think that may be one of his disguises.

ChiChi has read your story. She's read Kuririns story, too. I've tried to encourage her to write her own version down but she says that the two of you have done such a beautiful job that she doesn't feel the need to add anything. Her own adventures, she feels, were nowhere near as compelling since she didn't stand on the front lines of battle with the rest of you. Especially since the legends of Goku are becoming more widely known, ChiChi does not feel the need to analyze the past. The past has been painful for her. She is willing to let it go. She is not truly proud of how she handled certain things. It has been hard for her to make peace with that but she has moved on. Currently she seems content to live in the moment. I'm so glad that she is doing well, in spite of her fathers health challenges.

Please don't worry for Chaozu-san. I got a postcard from him. And then a letter. And now we're exchanging short novels, if you're going by page count. He has a lot on his mind. He's on a belated spirit quest, of sorts. Not preparing to die but trying to figure out what to do with his life. He loves and respects all of his friends but adversity was the glue in too many of his friendships. When he stopped being able to train and spar with his peers... When the knowledge of two premature deaths prevented him from caring to risk a third trip to the afterlife... He drifted from all of you, emotionally. Now he's just drifting physically as well. Trying to define himself. He can't say that he is an Emperor anymore and he doesn't consider himself a warrior. He has some healing skills, as you've mentioned, but isn't sure if that direction suits him. Your world may yet get a restaurant from Chaozu. He's been working in more than few of them, as he travels and learns the business. He's sorry for causing worry but he didn't want to trouble anyone with his own worries. There are some things that people have to do on their own, he says.

He writes predictions sometimes, in his letters. Most of which are vague, the future is always changing, but one of them sticks out to me. Chaozu-san has seen a version of the future where your world no longer has any dragonballs.

What a strange idea, yea? I wonder how that would happen. I wonder if the loss of the artifacts would make your world a better place. The dragonballs have existed for so long on your planet. Yet the ability to get wishes granted does not seem to have corrupted you or the population of your world, not overly much. The magic of the dragons has allowed a large number of people to cheat death, as both you and Kuririn-san have pointed out, and has allowed you to cleanse the entire population of traumatic memories. Perhaps such massive acts of kindness should not be regarded as cheating? Then again, perhaps the only way to stop the violent cycle of history from repeating is to let some of the damage remain. I don't know. That approach doesn't seem to have worked yet, on our world. Sometimes I watch the news on television and feel that we could just do with some dragonballs, over here. If nothing else maybe the sight of Shenlong hanging over a warzone would scare a few idiots into putting their differences aside. Would that be asking too much?

Eh. Maybe peace is too fleeting and fragile to wish for. On any world. Or maybe peace isn't about the whole world. Maybe it's something that has to start inside each of us, individually.

... Yamucha-san, please please forgive me. I have taken a liberty.

I wasn't going to bring this subject up at all. Not in this letter. It deserves its own letter. But I am so excited! I've been secretly writing to Puar, as well. For ages. And she's a judge, which you are aware of and she has some legal connections, the extent of which you may not be aware of and... We found them, Yamucha-san. We found them.

Last year, that was my turn. Remember? I wrote to you about that. I'm an adult. I'm not usually too emotional. You saw that letter, though. It was a mess. So was I. And no wonder. I'd never expected... The tombstones. My biological grandparents. People I never met. How I wish that we'd gotten to meet them. They aren't buried together. It explained so much. And from the roots, we found the branches. My family has grown. We get cards at christmas now, from my aunt that I have yet to be in the same room as. And her brother, my uncle... Oh my god. I hardly know him at all but I've known him my whole life. It's what seeing Goten that first time must have been like for all of you. The resemblance is just uncanny. My uncle is a year older than my father but they almost could pass for twins. And these relatives had so much information for us. And it was such a blessing, to finally be able to bridge and close the void within.

Yamucha-san, I have always written of my respect for you. I think perhaps that you do not fully understand the depth of it. I wanted to do something to show you. For the longest time, I didn't have any idea what to do. Your story gave me the courage to join the search for my own relatives, though so... It seemed a natural conclusion. You remind me a bit of my own father. He doesn't like to ask for help either. He'd given up on the search before I even knew that there was a search. But to see him together, at last, with his brother... Yamucha-san, the utter joy of that strange reunion... Words just fail to do the experience justice. There is no greater gift that I could think of.

My role in that search for my own relatives was very small, in reality. I was like a match to an old fuse. So much of the basic research had already been done. My father was on the brink of the finding them when he gave up. It just shatters me now, to consider what might have happened if I had never taken up that torch on his behalf. He hadn't wanted me to help...

Just like you.

With a great deal of help from Puar - who also loves and respects you - I took up the search on your behalf, anyway. I didn't know what I might find. I didn't want to mention it and give you false hope. The search has been difficult and time-consuming but at last it has ended. And we've found them, Yamucha-san. Your parents. Your relatives. Your history. We've found them.

And... By finding them... In a very real sense, Yamucha-san, we have also found you. All over again.

The information belongs to you and no one else before you. Puar gave you this letter to read, didn't she? She always checks the mail first. Hug her for me, she's been astonishing in her support. You truly have some great friends and on some level, may the friends that have always stood with you remain as a family to you as well. But there is another layer of family, now. Tell Puar to call me once you've finished reading this. If you want to get some long-overdue closure then we can all talk about it. If you'd rather not, it's okay. I do understand. When you've lived with a void for so long... It can be a bit overwhelming, to suddenly have so many answers at once.

The answers are waiting, Yamucha-san. We found them. You don't have to look _for_ them. You just have to decide when and if you are ready to look _at_ them. You have already waited for so long... But the decision is yours.

Thank you for allowing me to host the story. It is, has been and will continue to be an honor. I hope that the future might reward you with some good chapters to add. I suspect that it will. Whether or not you ever choose to write your further adventures down, enjoy the journey.

Please keep taking care. Look forward to hearing from you.

Ja ne, my friend, and blessed be.

_~DoraMouse_

**ooxoo**


End file.
